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HERTH 
PEDRGOGICK 
LIBRKRY 


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Joiin  3\7ett 


THE 


RULING  PRINCIPLE  OF  METHOD 


APPLIED    TO 


EDUCATION 


BY 


ANTONIO    ROSMINI    SERBATI 

TRANSLATED    BY 


MRS.   WILLIAM    GREY 


BOSTON 
D.    C.    HEATH    AND     COMPANY 


Copyright,  1887, 
By    D.    C.    heath    &    CO. 

€DV'..  •  DEFT- 


O-C- 


PREFACE. 


The  work  translated  in  the  following  pages  was  not  published 
till  after  the  death  of  the  author,  and  is,  in  fact,  only  a  frag- 
ment of  a  much  larger  work,  which  he  had  planned,  and  in  which 
the  education  of  the  human  being  was  to  be  carried  on,  through  all 
the  stages  of  life,  on  the  principle  of  natural  development  here  laid 
down  and  applied  to  infant  education  only.  He  rightly  entitled  it 
"The  Ruling  Principle  of  Method  in  Education,"  for  it  is  the 
principle  on  which  Nature  herself  works ;  and  its  applications,  as 
given  by  Rosmini,  and  almost  contemporaneously,  though  quite 
independently,  worked  out  by  Froebel,  in  his  Kindergarten  sys- 
tem, constitute  the  true  art  of  education,  founded  on  the  science 
of  human  nature.  I  cannot  better  introduce  the  reader  to  the 
nature  and  scope  of  the  work,  and  the  history  of  its  composition 
and  publication,  than  by  extracting  the  account  given  of  them 
in  the  "  Preface  addressed  to  Italian  Educators,"  prefixed  to  the 
original,  by  its  editor,  Francesco  Paoli:  — 

"Towards  the  end  of  1839  Antonio  Rosmini  undertook  this  work 
on  Pedagogy,  the  occasion  of  his  doing  so  being  apparently  the 
offer  of  a  pious  and  generous-minded  woman,  Anna  Maria  Bolor- 
garo  of  Stresa,  to  intrust  to  the  Institute  of  Charity  (the  order 
founded  by  Rosmini)  the  management  of  the  elementary  school 
which  her  grandfather  had  founded  in  that  place,  and  which  was, 
in  fact,  undertaken  by  the  Institute  in  the  following  year.  Ros- 
mini's  aim,  however,  was  not  to  compose  a  mere  manual  for  elemen- 
tary schoolmasters,  but  rather  a  complete  treatise  on  Pedagogy,  and 
to  give  a  new  instance  of  the  fecundity  of  his  philosophical  system 
and  its  application  to  the  art  of  bettering  human  life,  parallel  to 
those  he  had  already  given  in  his  *  Rights  of  Man '  (Diritto),  his 


iv  PKEFACE. 

<  Politics/  his  '  Treatise  on  Conscience,'  and  in  his  ascetic  works. 
Pedagogy  is  thus  included  among  the  sciences  of  application, 
directed  to  form  a  philosophical  doctrine  and  to  fecundate  philoso- 
phy and  render  it  fruitful.  Rosmini  rested  it  immediately  upon 
Anthropology  and  Psychology,  giving  the  knowledge  of  the  human 
faculties  to  be  educated  and  their  modes  of  action;  on  Idealogy 
and  Ethics,  giving  the  objects,  both  proximate  and  ideal,  by 
which  the  human  faculties  must  be  stimulated,  in  order  to  be 
properly  educated ;  on  Ontology  and  Theology,  giving  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  ends  towards  which  the  human  faculties  should  har- 
moniously tend,  to  find  in  them  rest  and  full  satisfaction,  which 

is  the  ultimate  goal  of  human  education Kor  did  Rosmini 

intend  to  treat  only,  as  is  generally  done,  of  that  part  of  human 
education  which  relates  to  childhood.  He  had  in  view  also  the 
adult  and  the  old,  the  whole  race,  in  short,  because  in  the  man,  at 
every  stage  of  life,  there  is  something  of  the  child ;  there  is  a  new 
development  going  on  within  him,  which  requires  to  be  guided  and 
assisted  that  it  may  reach  a  successful  issue,  and  the  man  learn  to 
educate  himself.  Hence,  Rosmini  divided  his  subjects  into  periods 
of  life,  computed,  not  by  numbers  of  years,  but  by  the  degrees  of 
cognition  which  the  human  mind  successively  attains  in  its  intel- 
lectual development.  The  first  of  these  periods  begins  at  birth, 
and  includes  about  six  weeks.  'No  definite  cognitions  can  be  as- 
signed to  this  period,  although  it  must  have  the  primary  and 
fundamental  cognition  of  being,  without  which  the  new-born  in- 
fant would  not  be  human,  for  it  would  not  have  the  light  of  rea- 
son  The  second  period  begins  with  the  first  smile  and  tears 

of  the  infant,  —  that  is,  generally  about  the  sixth  week ;  and  its 
cognitions  consist  only  of  the  simple  perception  of  things  as 
subsisting,  to  which  correspond  the  volitions,  termed  by  Ros- 
mini affective,  instinctive,  which  have  these  things  for  their  object. 
This  period  ends  with  the  child's  first  articulate  word,  —  as  a  rule, 
about  the  end  of  the  first  year.  Speech  is  the  sign  that  the  child 
has  entered  the  third  period,  and  that  he  has  attained  the  second 
order  of  cognitions,  formed  by  analyzing  the  first,  and  by  abstract- 
ing the  more  interesting,  sensible  qualities  of  things  from  the 
ideas  of  the  things  in  his  mind  (imagiual  ideas);  and  to  these 
correspond   the   affective   volitions,  having   for   their   object   these 


PREFACE.  V 

more  interesting,  sensible  qualities  abstracted  from  the  actual 
things,  and  from  the  other  qualities  to  which  the  appetitive  faculty- 
is  indifferent.  The  fourth  period  begins  usually  at  about  three 
years  of  age,  and  shows  itself  in  the  aptitude  to  learn  to  read. 
We  have  now  the  exercise  of  the  judging  faculty,  which  has 
become  capable  of  connecting  by  synthesis  the  elements  of  the 
previous  analysis,  and  of  affirming  the  existence  in  a  subject  of 
the  qualities  before  abstracted,  constituting  the  cognitions  of  the 
third  order,  to  which  correspond  the  volitions  appraising  the  various 
objects  of  which  these  qualities  are  affirmed.  This  is  soon  followed 
by  the  cognitions  of  the  fourth  order,  —  consisting  in  the  compari- 
son made  between  two  objects  previously  analyzed,  —  and  the  judg- 
ment of  appreciation,  giving  the  preference  to  one  over  the  other. 
To  this  order  of  cognitions  correspond  the  appreciative  volitions, 
choosing  between  two  objects ;  and  the  moral  sense,  which  existed 
in  germ  in  the  preceding  periods,  now  takes  a  larger  development. 
About  this  time  appears  the  first  dawn  of  conscience,  manifested 
in  the  volitions  resulting  from  cognitions  of  the  fifth  order.  These 
cognitions  consist  in  a  synthesis  by  which  are  determined  the  rela- 
tions existing  between  two  things  combined  into  one,  and  con- 
ceived as  one,  of  which  conceptions  the  most  important  is  that  of 
the  I  and  of  self -identity.  This  period  would  seem  to  extend  to  the 
time  when,  as  is  commonly  said,  the  child  acquires  the  use  of  rea- 
son, or,  as  should  rather  be  said,  the  free  use  of  it,  since  the  use  of 
reason  begins  at  the  earliest  period  of  life,  and  is  manifested  in 
the  smiles  and  tears  of  the  infant  of  six  weeks  old ;  for  the  brute 
neither  smiles  nor  weeps. 

"  The  work  of  Rosmini  only  reaches  to  this  period.  But  from  a 
short  memorandum  which  I  found  written,  in  his  own  hand,  on 
a  small  piece  of  paper,  as  was  his  custom,  it  would  seem  that  he 
intended  to  treat  of  four  following  periods,  which  he  would  doubt- 
less have  subdivided,  as  before,  by  years  of  age.*  I  found  that,  in 
the  period  from  the  seventh  to  the  twelfth  or  fourteenth  year,  he 
proposed  treating  of  the  work  performed  by  the  mind  through 
more  and  more  developed  reflection,  towards  attaining  the  con- 
scious (reflective)  knowledge  of  moral  obligation  and  of  law,  to 
which  corresponds  a  greater  freedom  of  action.  And  I  believe  he 
would  there  have  given  the  demonstration  of  what  he  had  more 


VI  PKEFACE. 

than  once  said  to  me,  that  on  that  period  principally  depends  the 
moral  character  of  the  man,  for  good  or  evil,  through  life.  For 
the  young  and  inexperienced  mind  throws  itself  wholly  and  with 
undivided  energy  into  the  acts  it  performs,  which  thus  have  a 
greater  fulness  of  life  and  force  than  those  of  adults.  Hence,  the 
first  moral  or  immoral  act,  deliberately  performed,  stamps  on  the 
moral  character  a  good  or  evil  impression  of  such  tenacity  that  it 
makes  virtue  more  or  less  easy  throughout  the  whole  remainder 
of  life.  He  then  notes  that  the  period  of  adolescence,  extending 
from  puberty  to  a  little  beyond  the  twentieth  year,  is  that  in  which 
the  youth,  having  attained  sufficient  reflective  power  and  acquired 
clear  notions  of  law,  of  duty,  and  of  goodness,  becomes  master  of 
himself,  and  can,  and  ought  to,  attend  to  the  practice  of  private  and 
individual  virtues,  by  which  he  more  and  more  educates  himself. 
Then  follows  that  other  period  of  life  in  which  the  man  applies 
himself  to  contemplate  things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  rising 
thence  to  the  thought  of  that  which  is  eternal  and  necessary.  Par- 
allel with  this  thought,  Rosmini  appears  to  place  the  man's  activity 
in  working  out  the  eternally  beautiful  through  literature  and  the 
fine  arts ;  in  defending,  by  word  and  deed,  the  eternally  just,  and 
the  inviolable  rights  of  humanity;  in  giving  aid  and  succor  in 
various  ways  to  his  fellow-creatures;  and,  hence,  he  calls  it  the 
period  of  action.  Finally  comes  the  last  period  of  life,  which  he 
names  the  age  of  counsel  and  the  age  of  repose  or  wisdom,  after 
which  follows  the  decay  of  the  man. 

"  From  the  fact  that  Rosmini  approximately  assigned  to  each 
period  a  certain  definite  limit  of  age,  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that 
the  period  or  the  capacity  of  individuals  is  to  be  determined  by 
years  of  age.  So  far  is  this  from  being  true,  that  we  not  unfre- 
quently  find  youths  who  are  men  in  sense,  and  men  who  remain 
childish  triflers  into  old  age.  The  periods  are  defined  and  made  to 
depend  necessarily*  on  the  orders  of  cognition ;  and,  from  the  rela- 
tion and  graduation  of  the  latter,  we  are  shown  how  impossible  it 
is  to  rise  to  the  higher  without  having  first  passed  through  the 
lower. 

"  It  was  the  intention  of  Rosmini,  as  appears  from  the  title  of 
the  manuscript,  to  complete  the  work  in  five  books ;  but  unfortu- 
nately of  these  we  have  not  quite  two,  the  sixth  section  of  Book  II., 


PREFACE.  vii 

which  treats  of  the  nature  of  the  cognitions  of  the  fifth  order  and 
the  corresponding  activities,  but  lacks  the  last  two  chapters,  giving 
the  instruction  and  education  appropriate  to  that  order.  I  had 
hoped  to  find  some  note  or  memorandum  to  supply,  at  least  in 
part,  this  grievous  loss,  but  my  hope  proved  vain.  I  found  nothing 
referring  to  the  later  books,  beyond  the  memorandum  given  above, 
and,  as  regards  the  two  missing  chapters  of  the  sixth  section,  only 
the  following  heads  :  ^  Chap.  III.  Instruction.  God,  all-knowing, 
the  rewarder  of  good  and  evil.  Chap.  IV.  Education.  Reason 
comes  to  the  aid  of  obedience.  Communication  with  the  reason  of 
others.  How  reason  should  correct  symj)athy.  At  this  point  the 
child  should  be  guarded  from  temptations  to  falsehood.  Means  of 
cultivating  truthfulness  in  the  child.  The  rule  against  falsehood  is 
ideal,  and  therefore  weak.  Ridicule  is  hurtful  to  children :  things 
should  be  treated  seriously.  Praise  and  blame  can  be  understood 
at  this  time.  I  think  they  might  begin  to  be  used  then.  If  rightly 
bestowed,  they  help  the  conception  of  moral  dignity.  To  give 
praise  or  blame  earlier  than  this  is  useless,  for  they  cannot  be 
understood.  Rule.  —  When  the  child  has  come  to  have  moral 
principles  and  feels  remorse,  his  conscience  begins  to  give  him  a 
rule  of  action.  In  what  the  religious  element  of  morality  at  that 
period  consists.'  This  memorandum  is  so  slight  that  I  might  have 
omitted  it ;  but  I  have  inserted  it  here,  that  I  may  be  able  to  affirm 
that  the  manuscript  is  published  entire,  just  as  it  was  found." 

Every  reader  of  the  above  notices  must  share  the  regret  of  the 
writer,  Francesco  Paoli,  that  Rosmini  has  left  us  only  a  fragment 
of  a  w^ork  so  nobly  planned.  It  is  clear  that,  had  life  or  leisure 
enough  been  granted  to  him,  he  would  have  given  the  world  — 
what  it  has  never  had  yet-^a  complete  method  and  art  of  educa- 
tion, based  on  the  applied  science  of  human  nature,  and  having  for 
its  aim  and  end  the  full  and  harmonious  development  of  the  latter, 
to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  perfect  man.  Fortunately,  the 
earlier  part,  which  is  preserved  to  us,  contains  the  fundamental 
principles  both  of  method  and  practice,  which  remain  the  same  for 
all  periods  of  life,  and  of  w^hich  only  the  application  varies  with 
the  varying  degrees  of  individual  development.  If  the  former  are 
thoroughly  mastered,  together  with  their  groundwork  in  the  laws 


viii  PREFACE. 

of  human  nature,  the  latter  will  be  a  comparatively  easy  task.  I 
would  point  out  here,  what  I  have  referred  to  in  notes  in  various 
portions  of  the  following  translation,  how  far  that  task  has  been 
accomplished  for  us  by  Froebel,  whose  Kindergarten  system, 
worked  out  by  him  in  entire  ignorance  of  Rosmini,  and  under 
conditions  of  birth,  education,  circumstances,  so  widely  different, 
is  yet  the  complete  application,  to  every  detail  of  infant  education, 
of  Rosmini's  principles,  or  rather  of  the  principles  common  to 
both,  because  both  had  arrived  at  them  by  the  same  road,  —  the 
profound  study  of  human  nature. 

On  one  point  only  they  differ;  namely,  as  to  the  direct  dogmatic 
religious  instruction  to  be  given  to  young  children.  This  differ- 
ence was  inevitable  between  a  priest  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  the 
founder  of  a  religious  order  under  Papal  sanction,  and  a  Protest- 
ant lay-teacher,  devoutly  religious,  indeed,  but  not  confining  his 
faith  within  the  four  corners  of  any  theological  formula.  Rosmini, 
as  could  not  be  otherwise,  based  the  practical  religious  education 
of  the  child  on  instruction  in  the  dogmas  and  formularies  of  the 
Church.  Froebel,  on  the  other  hand,  with  a  consistency  impossible 
to  his  great  contemporary,  refused  to  depart  in  religious  instruction 
from  the  fundamental  principle  of  both,  that  children  should  never 
learn  words  representing  ideas  which  their  minds  were  incapable 
of  conceiving;  and  thus,  w^hile  his  whole  teaching  was  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  religion  and  directed  to  lead  the  infant  mind  and 
hearj  to  the  love  and  adoration  of  God,  he  excluded  from  it  all 
dogmatic  formulas  given  in  words  which  the  child  could  not 
understand.  I  must  be  allowed  here,  in  justice  to  myself  and  my 
own  profoundest  convictions,  to  express  my  emphatic  dissent  from 
my  author  in  this  matter,  not  only  as  to  the  method  of  his  relig- 
ious instruction,  but  as  to  its  matter,  V^here  that  involves  any  of 
the  distinctive  dogmas  or  practices  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  I 
could  not  have  undertaken  this  translation,  had  I  not  been  per- 
mitted to  make  my  standpoint  on  this  question  perfectly  clear, 
and  to  enter  this  protest  against  any  supposed  acceptance  of  those 
passages  of  the  work  which  inculcate  such  dogmas  or  practices. 
They  are,  indeed,  singularly  brief  and  rare  in  this  fragment  of  the 
much  larger  work  which  Rosmini  had  projected,  in  the  later  por- 
tions of  which  dogmatic  religious  teaching  would,  we  can  scarcely 


PREFACE.  IX 

doubt,  have  taken  a  larger  place ;  but,  slight  as  they  are,  I  feel 
bound  in  honesty  to  record  my  dissent  as  an  individual  from  what 
I  render  as  a  translator. 

I  have  striven  to  make  my  translation  as  faithful  as  possible. 
Only  in  one  or  two  instances  I  have  omitted  notes  that  had  no 
interest  for  any  but  Italian  teachers,  as  referring  to  Italian  school- 
books,  now  out  of  date,  or  that  gave  redundant  quotations  in  sup- 
port of  points  fully  established  already.  I*  have  also  occasionally 
condensed  my  author's  somewhat  diffuse  illustrations;  but  in  no 
case  have  I  omitted  or  altered  anything  in  the  substance  or  logical 
order  of  the  text.  I  may  add,  that  for  such  slight  variations  and 
omissions  as  I  have  made  I  had  the  full  sanction  of  an  eminent 
member  of  the  Rosminian  Order,  at  whose  request  I  undertook 
the  translation. 

I  cannot  close  this  Preface  without  expressing  my  deep  obliga- 
tions to  Mr.  Thomas  Davidson,  who,  when  I  was  disabled  by  severe 
illness  from  continuing  the  correction  of  the  press,  most  kindly 
undertook  it  for  me,  and  superintended  the  final  revision  of  the 
whole  work,  —  a  task  for  which  his  profound  knowledge  of  Ros- 
mini  peculiarly  qualified  him,  but  which  I  cannot  sufficiently  thank 
him  for  undertaking  in  the  midst  of  his  own  engrossing  literary 
labors.  He  will  find  a  better  reward  than  my  poor  thanks  in  the 
consciousness  that,  without  his  aid,  the  English-speaking  public 
would  have  been  deprived  for  an  indefinitely  longer  time  of  so 
valuable  a  contribution  to  the  science  and  art  of  education  as  that 
afforded  by  the  great  Italian  thinker  in  the  work  of  which  this  is 
a  translation. 

MARIA  G.  GREY. 

Rome,  January,  1887. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

SKETCH  OF  THE  LIFE   OF  ANTONIO  ROSMINI  .     .     .    .    xix 
INTRODUCTION 3 

BOOK     I 
ON    THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OP    METHOD. 

Chap.  I.  —  On  the  gradations  which  must  be  observed  in  the 
mental  operations  required  of  children 12 

Chap.  II.  —  The  gradation  of  mental  operations  depends  on  the 
gradation  of  objects  to  which  the  attention  of  children  is  di- 
rected      .0 13 

Chap.  III.  —  On  the  natural  order  in  which  objects  present  them- 
selves to  the  human  mind,  first  discerned  in  classification     .    .      15 

Chap.  IV.  —  Continuation.  —  Method  of  teaching  children  the 
classification  of  things 16 

Chap.  V.  —  Continuation.  —  Order  in  which  objects  present  them- 
selves to  the  human  mind  in  the  local  distribution  of  things .    .      29 

Chap.  VI.  —  On  the  natural  order  in  which  objects  are  presented 
to  the  mind  in  abstract  reasoning 34 

Chap.  VII. — Recapitulation 37 

Chap.  VIII.  —  Natural  and  necessary  order  of  intellectual  action      38 

Chap.  IX.  —  Ruling  principle  of  method 39 

xi 


Xii  CONTENTS. 


BOOK    II. 

ON    THE    APPLICATION    TO    LITTLE    CHILDREN    OF    THE 
RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

PAGE 

SECTION  I.  —  On  the  Necessity  of  Classifying  the  Cogni- 
tions OF  the  Human  Mind  according  to  their  Order      41 

SECTION  II.  —  On  the  Cognitions  of  the  First  Order  and 

THE  Corresponding  Stage  of  Education 45 

Chap.  I.  —  Which  are  the  cognitions  of  the  First  Order   ....      45 
Art.  I.  —  What  is  the  stimulus  which  primarily  excites  the 

intellectual  attention  of  man  ? 47 

Art.  II.  —  What  is  the  object  of  the  primary  cognitions  ?  .    .      47 

Art.  hi.  —  What  are  perceptions  ? 48 

Art.  IV.  —  Of  what  improvement  the  human  perceptions  are 

capable    • 51 

Art.  V.  —  To  the  First  Order  of  cognitions  besides  percep- 

-     tions  belong  also  the  memory  of  perceptions ;  the  imaginal 

ideas ;  the  associations  of  the  three  species  enumerated, 

together  with  the  whole  action  awakened  by  them  in  the 

mind 56 

Chap.  II.  —  On  the  activities  which  respond  to  the  First  Order  of 

cognitions 59 

Art.  I.  —  Distinction  between  the  two  first  periods  of  child- 
hood   59 

Art.  II.  —  Activities  proper  to  the  First  Period    .....  61 

Art.  III.  —  Activities  proper  to  the  Second  Period   ....  66 

Chap.  III.  —  On  the  education  and  instruction  of  the  child  through 
the  two  first  periods  of  life 73 

Art.  I.  —  On  Religion 73 

Art.  II.  —  The  acts  of  the  will  are  stronger  in  childhood  than 
in  adult  years .      74 

Art.  III.  —  The  tendency  of  education  in  early  childhood 
should  be  rather  to  cultivate  feeling  and  volition  than  in- 
tellect   76 

Art.  IV.  —  The  actions  produced  by  the  animal  feelings  are 
connected  by  the  laws  of  nature :  the  earliest  volitions,  and 
the  intellectual  feelings  consequent  upon  them,  are  in  them- 
selves disconnected 77 


CONTENTS.  XUl 

PAGE 

Art.  V.  —  Observations  and  experiments  the  child  should  be 

led  to  make 79 

Art.  VI.  —  The  educator  should  regulate  the  perceptions  of 

the  child 80 

Art.  VII.  —  Patience  and  sagacity  required  by  the  educator 

for  this  purpose 80 

Art.  VIII.  —  Order  to  be  introduced  in  the  perceptions  of 

the  child 81 

SECTION   III.  — On  the   Second  Order  of  Cognitions   and 

THE  Corresponding  Education 84 

Chap.  I.  —  Third  period  of  childhood 84 

Chap.  II.  —  What  are  the  cognitions  of  the  Second  Order    ...      85 

Art.  I.  —  What  are  the  cognitions  of  the  Second  Order  in 
general 85 

Art.  II.  —  Two  kinds  of  cognition  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
mind  at  a  certain  period  of  life,  —  the  one  because  it  is  of 
too  high  an  order,  the  other  because  it  does  not  attract  the 
attention,  which  lacks  the  necessary  stimulus 85 

Art.  III.  —  What  is  the  motive  which  impels  the  child 
towards  cognitions  of  the  Second  Order 89 

Art.  IV.  —  The  two  kinds  of  cognition  to  which  language 
impels  the  child's  intelligence 91 

Art.  V.  —  What  are  the  cognitions  gained  by  the  child 
through  language 91 

Art.  VI.  —  What  are  the  cognitions  of  the  Second  Order 

given  to  the  child  through  language 93 

§  1 . — Abstractions  formed  immediately  from  sensible  things      96 

§  2.  —  First  classification  of  sensible  things 104 

§  3.  —  Integration 106 

Chap.  III.  —  Development  of  the  active  faculties  in  the  Third 
Period  of  childhood 107 

Chap.  IV.  —  Of  the  teaching  corresponding  to  the  Second  Order 

of  cognitions 112 

Art.  I.  —  Four  errors  to  be  avoided  by  teachers 112 

Art.  II.  —  The  gain  to  the  mind  from  the  regularity  with 
which  perceptions  and  imaginal  ideas  have  been  imparted 
in  the  preceding  period 113 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Art.  III.  —  Matter  and  instrument  of  instruction,  —  language     1 14 

§  1.  —  The  child  should  be  taught  to  name  the  greatest 

possible  number  of  things 114 

§2.  —  Limits  of  this  instruction 114 

§3.  —  Double  practice  in  language,  —  natural  and  artificial  115 

§4.  —  Continuation.  —  Artificial  practice 117 

Chap.  V.  —  Education  of  the  active  faculties  corresponding  to 
cognitions  of  the  Second  Order 125 

Art.  I.  —  Difficulty  of  determining  which  should  be  the  nega- 
tive and  v^hich  the  positive  part  of  education 125 

Art.  II.  —  Difficulty  of  determining  how  much  the  teacher 
should  give  the  child  and  how  much  he  should  require  from 
him 127 

Art.  III.  —  What  is  the  moral  rule  of  the  child  arrived  at 
the  Second  Order  of  cognitions 133 

Art.  IV.  —  Can  the  morality  of  the  child  be  injured  v^hile  he 
is  still  in  the  second  stage  of  cognitions  ? 138 

Art.  V.  —  How  to  make  use  of  the  child's  faculty  of  belief,  to 
incline  him  to  moral  goodness 142 

Art.  YI.  —  Other  means  towards  the  same  end 143 

Art.  VII.  —  On  resistance,  considered  in  relation  to  the 
Third  Period  in  childhood 146 

§  1.  —  Exercise  of  patience  which  may  be  required  of  the 

child 147 

§  2.  —  Correction  of  the  child's  conceptions 147 

§  3.  —  Kectification  of  bad  feelings 149 

§  4.  —  Removal  of  the  limits  too  easily  set  to  the  benevolent 

affections 150 

Art.  VIII.  —  Acts  of  religious  worship  which  the  child  should 
begin  to  perform  at  this  age 160 

SECTION  IV.  —  On  the  Cognitions  of  the  Third  Order  and 

the  Corresponding  Education 166 

Chap.  I.  —  The  Fourth  Period  of  childhood,  and  the  difference 
between  the  periods  and  the  orders  of  cognitions 166 

Chap.  II.  —  On  the  mental  progress  made  at  that  age  with  regard 
to  the  cognitions  of  the  preceding  orders  and  the  concomitant 
development  of  the  other  faculties 168 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

Chap.  III.  —  On  the  cognitions  of  the  Third  Order 169 

Art.   I.  —  What  are  tlie  cognitions  of  the  Third   Order  in 

general"? 169 

Art.  II.  —  Method  we  shall  follow  henceforth  in  the  exposi- 
tion of  human  development 171 

Art.  III.  —  Processes  by  which  the  mind  arrives  at  cognitions 

of  the  Third  Order 173 

§  1.  —  Cognitions  of  the  Third  Order  are  always  reached 

through  synthetic  judgments 173 

§2.  —  What  is  contributed  by  analytic  judgments  to  the 

Third  Order  of  cognitions 176 

§  3.  —  Catathetical  ratiocination  at  this  period 178 

Art.  IV.  —  Objects  of  the  cognitions  of  the  Third  Order    .    .  179 

§  1.  —  Eeality  and  ideality 179 

A.  Collections,  numbers 179 

B.  Definite  principles • 186 

§  2.  —  Morality  —  moral  principles 189 

Chap.  IV.  —  Development  of  the  active  ^faculties  in  the  Fourth 

Period  of  childhood 192 

Art.  I.  —  Increase  of  spontaneous  activity 192 

Art.  II.  —  Desultoriness  of  action 194 

Art.  III.  — Play 195 

Art.  IV.  —  Moral  activity 197 

Chap.  V.  —  The  instruction  corresponding  to  the  cognitions  of 

the  Third  Order 202 

Art.  I.  —  What  is  meant  more  fully  by  instruction  corre- 
sponding to  a  certain  order  of  cognitions 202 

Art.  II.  —  The  language  and  style  to  be  used  by  the  teacher  202 

Art.  III.  —  Matter  of  instruction 204 

§1.  — Action 204 

§  2.  —  Oral  exercises *.    .    .  204 

§  3.  —  Teaching  by  pictures 210 

Chap.  VI.  —  The  moral  education  corresponding  to  the  Third 

Period 211 

Art.  I.  —  On  the  objective  principle  and  the  subjective  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  child  acts  at  this  period 211 

Art.  II.  —  On  resistance,  considered  in  relation  to  the  child 

in  the  Pourth  Period 215 


XVi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Art.  III.  —  Divine  worship 216 

SECTION  V. — The  Cognitions  of  the  Fourth  Order  and  the 

CORRESPONDING   EDUCATION 217 

Chap.  I.  —  Cognitions  of  the  Fourth  Order    .     .  " 217 

Art.  I.  —  Classification  of  the  cognitions  of  the  Fourth  Order  217 
Art.  II.  —  Mental  processes  in  the  formation  of  cognitions  of 

the  Fourth  Order 218 

§  1. — Analytic  judgments 218 

,     §  2.  —  Synthetic  judgments 220 

§  3.  —  Hypothetical  ratiocination .  221 

Art.  III.  —  Objects  of  the  cognitions  of  the  Fourth  Order     .  222 

§  1.  —  Eeality  and  ideality 222 

A.  Differences 222 

B,  Numbers 223 

a  Collections 224 

D.  Means  and  end 224 

E.  Intellectual  perception  of  one's  self  (of  the  I  proper)  224 

F.  Time    .     .     .* 232 

G.  First  definite  principles  drawn  from  the  ideas  of 

actions 234 

§  2.  —  Morality,  moral  principles,  conscience 245 

§3.  — Idea  of  God 250 

Chap.  II.  —  Development  of  the  active  faculties  of  the  Fourth 

Order  of  cognitions 264 

Art.  I.  —  With  the  Fourth  Order  begin  appreciative  volitions  255 

Art.  II.  —  Freedom 256 

Art.  III.  —  How  belief  and  docility  naturally  increase  in  the 

child 258 

Art.  IV.  —  Desire  to  influence  others 260 

Chap.  III. — Instruction  adapted  to  the  Fourth  Order  of  cognitions  261 

Art,  I.  —  How  language  should  be  the  foundation  of  all  in- 
struction of  the  young 261 

Art.  II.  —  Exercise  of  external  activity,  of  imagination,  mem- 
ory, and  the  affections 263 

Art.  III.  —  Oral  exercises  in  this  period 265 

Art.  IV.  —  Instruction  in  reading  and  writing 266 

Art.  V.  —  Arithmetic 270 


CONTENTS.  XVii 

PAGE 

Art.  VI.  —  Unification  of  ideas  and  thoughts 270 

§  1.  —  Association  of  ideas 272 

§  2.  —  Order  of  ideas 275 

§  3.  —  Moral  order  of  ideas 278 

Chap.  IV.  —  Moral  education  corresponding  to  the  Fourth  Order 

of  cognitions 283 

Art.  I.  —  The  child's  credulity  should  not  be  abused    .     .     .  283 

Art.  II.  —  Obedience  not  to  be  abused 286 

Art.  III.  —  On  maintaining  the  rectitude  of  the  child's  con- 
science      287 

§  1.  —  How  the  will  of  the  educator,  which  is  the  child's 

supreme  law,  should  be  good 291 

§  2.  —  The  will  of  the  educator,  being  the  child's  supreme 
law,  should  be  good  with  a  goodness  the  child  can 

recognize 292 

§  3.  —  How  the  child  should  be  led  upwards  ^rom  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  goodness  proper  to  the  human  will,  to 

knowledge  of  the  goodness  proper  to  the  Divine  will    .  295 

SECTION  VI.  —  The  Cognitions  of  the  Fifth  Order,  and  the 

Education  corresponding  to  them 300 

Chap.  I.  —  The  development  of  intelligence  which  takes  place  in 

the  Fifth  Order .300 

Art.  I.  —  Processes  by  which  cognitions  of  the  Fifth  Order  are 

formed 301 

§  1.  —  Synthetic  judgments  of  the  third  species      ....  301 

§  2.  —  Analytic  judgments  of  the  Fifth  Order 304 

§  3.  —  Disjunctive  ratiocination 305 

Art.  II.  —  Objects  of  the  cognitions  of  the  Fifth  Order .     .    .  307 

§1.  — The  real  and  the  ideal 307 

A.  Numbers 307 

B.  Order  of  value  between  objects 307 

C.  Time 308 

D.  Cognition  of  the  I 309 

§2.  —  Morality,  moral  principles 311 

A.  Beginnings  of  remorse  and  conscience 311 

B.  Moral  principles  in  the  fifth  order.  —  Duty  of  moral 
fortitude 310 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

C.  Duty  of  honoring  the  will  of  the  most  worthy  before 

all  others •.     ...    318 

D.  Beginning  of  abstract  moral  principles,  as  distin- 

guished from  the  concrete 323 

E.  Increased  difficulty  of  right  moral  conduct,  from  the 
appearance  in  the  mind  of  abstract  moral  standards  326 

F.  Difficulty  of  perfect  truthfulness  for  the  child     .     .  328 

G.  How  the  three  categorical  moral  principles  begin  to 
manifest  themselves  clearly  at  this  period     .    .    .  332 

§3.   Notion  of  God 333 

Chap.  II.  —  Development  of  the  active  faculties  and  of  the  moral 
condition  of  the  child  in  the  Fifth  Order  of  cognitions      .     .     .     334 
Art.  I.  —  Development  of  the  child's  imagination ;  mainly 

caused  by  definite  principles  regarding  the  action  of  things    334 
Art.  II.  —  Moral  advantage  of  the  development  of  the  imagi- 
nation   340 

Art.  III.  —  Moral  injury  from  the  development  of  the  im- 
agination       345 

Art.  IV.  —  Self-consciousness  of  the  child  at  that  age,  consid- 
ered in  relation  to  morality. — Moral  injury.  —  Selfishness    353 
Art.  V.  —  Continuation.  —  Two  degrees  of  selfishness  .    .     .    355 
Art.  VI.  —  Continuation.  —  Judgment  by  two  measures.  — 

Childish  artifices 356 

Art.  VII.  —  Moral  apathy  and  restiveness 357 

Art.  VIII.  —  Moral  advantages  of  self -consciousness    .    .    .    359 
Art.  IX.  —  Continuation 360 


SKETCH 


LIFE  OF  ANTONIO   ROSMINI/ 


Antonio  Rosmini  Serbati  was  born  on  the  25th  of  March,  1797, 
at  Rovereto,  in  the  Italian  Tyrol.  His  father,  Pier  Modesto  Rosmini 
Serbati,  belonged  to  an  old,  wealthy,  and  noble  family,  originally  called 
Aresmino  or  Eresmino.  His  mother  was  a  Countess  Giovanna  dei  For- 
menti,  from  Riva,  on  the  Lake  of  Garda.  Both,  like  many  of  their  an- 
cestors, were  cultivated,  generous,  and  pious  people,  zealously  devoted 
to  the  service  of  the  Church,  but  do  not  seem  to  have  been  in  any 
other  way  remarkable.  Antonio  was  a  delicate  and  finely  organized 
child,  and  very  early  showed  signs  of  those  virtues  of  head  and  heart 
for  which  he  afterwards  became  remarkable,  as  well  as  of  that  relig- 
ious and  devotional  tendency  which  gave  aim  to  his  whole  life.  Being 
fond  of  study,  he  entered,  when  still  very  young,  the  gymnasium  of  his 
native  town,  and  there  so  distinguished  himself  that  the  rector  was 
able  to  predict,  in  no  indefinite  terms,  the  boy's  future  greatness.  After 
leaving  the  gymnasium  he  remained  two  years  at  home,  studying 
mathematics  and  philosophy,  for  both  of  which  he  early  displayed 
great  tendency  and  capacity.  It  was  in  the  course  of  these  two  years 
(1815- 181G)  that  two  of  the  most  important  events  in  Rosmini's  life 
took  place,  —  the  discovery  of  his  philosophical  principle,  and  his  de- 
termination to  enter  the  priesthood.  Firm  in  the  latter  resolution, 
and  having  overcome  the  strong  opposition  of  his  parents,  he  left 

1  This  sketch  is  a  summary  of  that  given  by  Mr.  Thos.  Davidson  in  his  work, 
"The  Philosophical  System  of  Antonio  Rosmini  Serbati"  (London,  Kegan  Paul 
&  Co.,  1882  ;  Boston,  Gum  &  Co.),  which  I  recommend  to  the  perusal  of  all  who 
wish  to  make  themselves  acquainted  with  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  services 
rendered  to  philosophy  by  one  of  the  greatest  thinkers  of  modern  times,  so  little 
known  as  yet  out  of  his  own  comitry. 

(xix) 


XX  SKETCH   OF   THE   LIFE   OF   ANTONIO   ROSMINI. 

Rovereto  in  1817,  and  began  his  theological  course  at  the  University  of 
Padua.  In  1820  he  lost  his  father,  who  left  him  heir  to  the  bulk  of  his 
very  considerable  property.  In  1821  he  was  ordained  priest,  and  cele- 
brated his  first  mass  at  St.  Catherine's  in  Venice. 

From  1820  to  1826  Rosmini  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  time  at  his 
home  in  Rovereto.  It  was  during  this  time  that  the  two  great  pur- 
poses which  shaped  his  whole  subsequent  life  became  clear  to  his 
mind,  —  the  working  out  of  a  coherent  system  of  truth,  which  should 
be  a  basis  for  revealed  theology,  and  the  founding  of  an  institution 
which  should  train  teachers,  and  especially  priests  for  the  Church,  in 
holiness,  charity,  and  wisdom.  At  first  he  meant  that  it  should  consist 
of  laymen,  but  afterwards  concluded  that  an  association  composed  in 
part  of  priests  would  be  more  useful.  In  February,  1828,  he  left  Milan, 
where  he  had  mostly  lived  since  1826,  and  retired  to  Domodossola,  a 
small  but  beautifully  situated  town  in  the  Piedmontese  Alps.  Here 
he  led  the  life  of  an  anchorite,  feeding  on  boiled  herbs,  frequently  fast- 
ing, sleeping  on  a  couch  of  leaves,  and  spending  his  time  in  prayer, 
meditation,  study,  and  writing.  His  naturally  delicate  health  broke 
down  under  the  strain,  and  he  never  fully  recovered.  It  was  here  that, 
kneeling  before  a  crucifix,  he  wrote  the  Rule  of  his  order,  and  here  that 
he  composed  a  large  part  of  his  first  important  work,  "  The  New  Essay 
on  the  Origin  of  Ideas"  ^  {Nuovo  Saggio  sulV  Origine  delle  Idee),  which 
was  printed  during  his  subsequent  stay  in  Rome  from  November,  1828, 
to  March,  1830,  and  which  at  once  established  his  reputation  as  the 
ablest  Catholic  philosopher  of  his  time,  and  was  almost  immediately 
introduced  as  a  text-book  into  many  schools  and  seminaries,  even,  it 
should  seem,  into  those  under  the  control  of  the  Jesuits.  During  this 
stay  in  Rome  he  received  great  encouragement  from  the  Pope,  Pius 
VIII.,  to  pursue  his  philosophical  studies,  and  took  steps  toward  ob- 
taining the  approval  of  the  Holy  See  for  his  new  order. 

From  1830  to  1834  Rosmini  lived  partly  at  Domodossola,  partly  in 
Trent,  where  he  had  been  invited  to  found  a  house  of  his  order.  In 
these  years  he  vn^ote  his  ^^  Principles  of  Moral  Science,"  part  of  his 
"Supernatural  Anthropology,"  and  in  1832  his  now  famous  "Five 
Wounds  of  Holy  Church."  In  1834  he  was  called  by  the  clergy  and 
people  of  his  native  city,  Rovereto,  to  take  charge  of  the  congregation 

I  Translated  into  Enghsh,  and  published  by  Kegan  Paul  «&  Co.,  London,  1884, 


SKETCH   OF   THE   LIFE   OF   ANTONIO   ROSMINI.  xxi 

of  St.  Mark's  there;  but,  finding  himself  hampered  in  his  efforts  to 
improve  the  moral  and  spiritual  welfare  of  his  parishioners  by  the 
jealous  opposition  of  the  Austrian  government,  he  resigned  his  charge 
in  1835,  and  at  once  returned  to  his  previous  mode  of  life.  But  the 
Austrian  government,  having  once  had  its  attention  called  to  his  work 
in  Eovereto,  began  to  look  with  suspicion  on  his  efforts  generally, 
and  to  endeavor  to  counteract  them.  With  this  purpose,  it  first  for- 
bade all  connection  between  his  house  at  Trent  and  any  foreign  house, 
meaning  the  one  at  Domodossola,  and  finally  succeeded  in  breaking 
it  up  altogether.  This  hostility  to  Rosmini  was  sharpened  by  the 
influence  of  the  Jesuits  and  their  friends,  who  saw  in  his  enterprises 
possible  dangers  to  their  order.  From  that  time  until  now  the  per- 
secution of  Rosmini  and  his  followers  at  the  hand  of  the  Jesuits  has 
never  ceased  even  for  a  moment.  Freed  from  parochial  duties,  Ros- 
mini during  the  years  1836  -  37  moved  a  good  deal  from  place  to  place, 
trying  to  secure  a  footing  and  sympathy  for  his  order,  snd  to  defend 
the  groundwork  of  his  philosophy,  which  was  already  vigorously  at- 
tacked, not  only  by  the  Jesuits  and  their  friends,  but  also  by  learned 
men  of  rationalistic  and  anti-Catholic  tendencies.  In  these  years  he 
was  able  to  found  a  mission  in  England,  and  also  to  establish,  at  the 
Sacra  of  St.  Michele  in  Turin,  a  religious  house,  to  which  he  trans- 
ferred, for  a  time,  the  novitiate  of  his  order. 

In  1837  Rosmini,  tired  of  Austrian  surveillance,  took  up  his  abode 
at  Stresa,  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Lago  Maggiore,  which  remained 
his  home  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  His  institution,  in  spite  of  bitter  oppo- 
sition, received  in  1839  the  formal  approval  of  Pope  Gregory  XVI.,  his 
old  and  steadfast  friend,  and  continued  to  increase  in  strength  and 
numbers.  He  was  able  also  to  vindicate  his  philosophy  from  the  for- 
midable attacks  of  Count  Mamiani,  the  able  and  zealous  Italian  patriot, 
who  acknowledged  his  defeat  in  the  most  generous  terms,  and  of  Yin- 
cenzo  Gioberti,  the  great  priest-patriot  and  patriot-philosopher  of  Italy, 
who  also  lived  to  admit  that  he  had  misjudged  him  altogether.  His 
reply  to  Gioberti  appeared  in  1848,  that  year  of  so  many  changes,  when 
Italy  was  struggling  to  free  herself  from  the  bonds  of  the  hated  Aus- 
trian. Rosmini  is  usually  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  initiators  of  the 
movement  which  ended  in  the  emancipation  and  union  of  Italy ;  and 
it  is  true  that  he  sincerely  longed  to  see  Italy  delivered  from  the  Aus- 


XXU         SKETCH   OF   THE    LIFE    OF   ANTONIO   ROSMINI. 

trian ;  but,  like  a  good,  consistent  Catholic,  lie  hoped  this  deliverance 
would  result  in  placing  the  country  under  the  control  of  the  Pope.  It 
was  this  longing  and  this  hope  that  stirred  up  the  interest  which  he 
felt  in  the  political  movements  of  that  troubled  time,  and  induced 
him  to  take  part  in  them. 

In  1848  Rosmini  wrote  his  "  Constitution  according  to  Social  Jus- 
tice," and  published  his  "  Five  Wounds  of  Holy  Church,"  written  as 
early  as  1832,  the  ultimate  aim  of  both  being  to  procure  for  the  Pope 
an  inalienable  preponderance  in  the  government  of  Italy,  and  to  make 
Catholicism  a  leading  article  in  her  constitution.  Shortly  after  the  pub- 
lication of  these  works  the  Piedmontese  government  offered  Rosmini, 
whose  influence  at  Rome  was  supposed  to  be  great,  an  appointment  as 
special  envoy  to  the  Holy  See,  in  order  to  obtain  the  countenance  and 
aid  of  the  Pope,  then  Pius  IX.,  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  against 
the  Austrians.  Rosmini  accepted  the  mission  with  readiness,  but  un- 
fortunately, while  the  government  which  appointed  him  contemplated 
an  armed  alliance  of  princes,  capable  of  offering  immediate  resistance 
to  the  Austrians,  what  Rosmini  meant  to  labor  for  was  a  permanent 
confederation  of  states,  with  the  Pope  as  ex  officio  president.  The  gov^ 
ernment,  however,  was  induced  by  Gioberti  to  adopt  for  a  moment 
Rosmini's  plan,  and,  with  a  vague  understanding  to  this  effect,  Rosmini 
started  for  Rome,  where  he  was  most  graciously  received. by  the  Pope, 
appointed  a  Consultor  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Index,  and  prom- 
ised a  CardinaFs  hat,  and  immediately  began  to  carry  out  the  object 
of  his  mission,  as  he  was  fain  to  understand  it.  But  the  Piedmontese 
government,  fearing  that  his  plan,  which  was  approved  by  the  Pope 
and  the  Duke  of  Tuscany,  might  prove  successful,  sent  him  instruc- 
tions to  abandon  it  and  confine  himself  to  the  project  of  an  armed 
alliance.  This  led  to  Rosminf  s  resignation,  at  the  end  of  seven  weeks, 
the  effect  of  his  influence  upon  the  Pope  having  been  to  prevent  his 
listening  to  the  Piedmontese  proposal,  and  to  confirm  him  in  his  res- 
olution to  take  no  direct  part  in  the  war.  This  resolution  brought 
about  the  crisis  which  began  with  the  foul  assassination  of  the  minis- 
ter Rossi,  and  ended  with  the  Pope's  flight  to  Gaeta.  In  the  interval 
between  these  events  Rosmini,  who  was  supposed  to  represent  the 
views  of  patriotic  Piedmont,  was  suggested  as  a  member  of  the  liberal 
ministry  forced  upon  the  Pope,  and  was  by  him  made  president  of  it, 


SKETCH   OF   THE   LIFE    OF   ANTONIO   ROSMINI.        xxiii 

with  the  portfolio  of  Public  Instruction.  But  Rosmini's  almost  mor- 
bidly scrupulous  conscience,  his  sense  of  incapacity,  and,  more  than 
all,  his  fear  that  his  appointment  had  been  made  under  pressure,  and 
would  place  him  in  a  false  position  with  the  people,  induced  him  to 
decline  the  nomination  and  keep  himself  out  of  the  way.  For  what- 
ever reason,  his  influence  with  the  Pope  ceased  from  that  moment. 
Nevertheless,  he  followed  him  in  his  flight  to  Gaeta,  but  found  his  posi- 
tion there,  exposed  to  the  malign  suspicions  of  Antonelli  and  the  party 
in  favor,  so  uncomfortable,  that  he  betook  himself  to  Naples,  thus  leav- 
ing the  field  open  to  his  enemies.  The  latter,  aided  by  the  Neapolitan 
government,  which,  for  reasons  of  its  own,  persecuted  him  during  the 
whole  time  he  remained  within  the  limits  of  its  jurisdiction,  succeeded 
in  calling  at  Naples  an  irregular  meeting  of  the  Congregation  of 
the  Index,  which  pronounced  a  decree  prohibiting  his  recently  pub- 
lished works,  "The  Constitution  according  to  Social  Justice"  and 
"  The  Five  Wounds  of  Holy  Church."  Rosmini,  though  a  Consultor 
of  the  Congregation,  was  not  informed  of  this  meeting,  nor  was  it  till 
some  months  later,  when  he  had  withdrawn  to  Albano  from  the  petty 
persecutions  of  the  Neapolitan  government,  that  he  received  the  news 
of  the  prohibition.  He  submitted  to  it  at  once  without  protest,  and 
offered  to  withdraw  his  books  from  circulation;  but  this  was  not 
deemed  necessary.  His  enemies  had  succeeded  in  surrounding  his 
name  with  an  odor  of  heresy,  and  they  were  satisfied.  He  shortly 
afterwards  returned  to  his  home  and  his  former  saintly  life  at  Stresa. 
He  lived  but  seven  years  more.  During  these  he  devoted  himself 
exclusively  to  the  care  of  his  institute  and  the  composition  of  works 
forming  part  of  his  great  system  of  truth.  His  enemies,  who  had  been 
baffled  for  a  time  by  his  hearty  submission  to  the  decree  prohibiting 
his  two  patriotic  works,  now  began  a  systematic  process  of  calum- 
niation, in  order  by  mere  reiteration  to  convince  the  Pope  that  Ros- 
mini was  a  heretic,  and  a  man  dangerous  and  hostile  to  the  cause  of 
the  Holy  See.  To  their  dismay,  however,  they  soon  found  that  they 
had  overshot  their  mark.  The  Pope  knew  him  personally,  and  before 
that  knowledge  calumny  fell  dead.  Besides,  being  now  restored  to  his 
throne,  and  free  to  think  for  himself,  Pius  IX.  saw  that  he  had  deeply 
wronged  Rosmini,  and  resolved  to  make  what  reparation  was  in  his 
power,  by  giving  him  a  fair  hearing.    He  first  enjoined  silence  on  Ros- 


xxiv        SKETCH   OF   THE   LIFE    OF   ANTONIO   ROSMINI. 

mini's  enemies,  and  then  had  the  whole  of  hi^  published  works  sub- 
mitted to  the  most  careful  scrutiny.  The  result  of  this  process,  which 
lasted  nearly  four  years  (1851-54),  was  that  at  a  meeting  of  the  Con- 
gregation of  the  Index,  the  Pope  presiding  in  person,  it  was  declared 
that  all  the  works  of  Antonio  Rosmini  Serbati,  lately  subjected  to 
examination,  were  to  be  dismissed  as  free  from  censure,  and  that,  on 
account  of  the  said  examination,  no  obloquy  should  attach  either  to 
their  author  or  to  the  institution  founded  by  him,  "  de  vitse  laudibus 
et  singularibus  in  ecclesiam  promeritis."  The  Pope  then  enjoined 
perpetual  silence  on  Rosmini's  enemies,  whose  fury  in  consequence 
knew  no  bounds,  and  from  that  day  to  this  has  not  exhausted  itself. 

Rosmini  did  not  live  long  to  enjoy  the  satisfaction  he  must  have 
felt.  He  died  the  death  of  a  saint,  at  Stresa,  on  the  1st  of  July,  1855, 
not  without  suspicion  of  having  been  poisoned.  His  remains  rest  in 
the  crypt  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Crucifix,  which  he  built.  Over  it 
is  a  handsome  monument  by  Yela,  representing  Rosmini  on  his  knees, 
in  the  attitude  in  which  he  wrote  the  Rule  of  his  order.  In  the  college 
attached  to  the  church  is  the  working  part  of  his  library,  his  manu- 
scripts, and  many  interesting  relics  of  him. 

In  regard  to  the  institution  which  he  founded,  a  few  words  must  suf- 
fice. Its  proper  title  is  the  Institute  of  the  Brethren  of  Charity  (Istituto 
del  FratelU  delta  Carita) ;  but  its  members  are  better  known  by  the 
shorter  name  of  Rosminians.  The  fundamental  principle  of  it  is  com- 
plete surrender  of  the  will  to  the  will  of  God,  waiting  in  faith  on  the 
promptings  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  its  aim  the  moral  perfection  of 
souls  through  obedience  to  every  law  human  and  Divine,  natural  and 
revealed.  The  principle  of  all  action  is  to  be  charity,  material,  moral, 
intellectual,  "  the  love  of  the  good,  of  all  the  good."  The  Brethren  of 
Charity  undergo  a  two  years'  novitiate,  take  the  three  monastic  vows 
of  obedience,  poverty,  and  chastity,  wear  no  distinguishing  habit,  and 
conform  to  the  laws  of  the  country  in  which  their  lot  may  happen  to 
be  cast.  Each  retains  a  sort  of  title  to  his  own  property,  but  makes 
a  continual  sacrifice  of  it,  by  disposing  of  it  as  the  general  of  the  order 
enjoins.  The  order,  as  s.uch,  owns  no  property.  In  spite  of  unscru- 
pulous opposition,  it  is  in  a  fairly  prosperous  condition,  and  if  its 
members  are  not  numerous,  those  who  have  entered  it  are  among  the 
most  human-hearted  men  and  the  truest  Christians  that  the  present 


SKETCH    OF   THE   LIFE    OF   ANTONIO    ROSMINI.         XXV 

world  has  to  show.  They  are  almost  exclusively  Italians  or  English- 
men. The  order  has  two  novitiates,  one  at  Domodossola  in  Pied- 
mont, and  one  recently  removed  from  Rugby  to  Wadhurst  in  Sussex 
(England).  It  has  also  several  colleges  and  religious  houses  in  various 
parts  of  Italy  and  England. 

"  When  we  say,"  writes  Mr.  Davidson,  "  that  Rosmini  was  a  saint 
and  a  thinker  of  the  very  first  order,  we  have  given  in  brief  the  main 
features  of  his  character A  man  who,  without  courting  pub- 
licity or  fame,  labored  for  forty  years  to  do  the  good  as  he  under- 
stood it.  The  good  which  he  sought  to  do  met  with  many  obstacles 
in  his  lifetime,  and  many  more  since  that  came  to  a  close;  but  his 
order  still  keeps  alive  his  spirit  of  piety,  hope,  and  charity,  and  his 
works,  in  spite  of  all  wilful  misrepresentations,  calumny,  and  denunci- 
ation, are  slowly,  but  surely,  extending  their  influence  in  every  direc- 
tion where  influence  is  desirable We  may  differ  with  him  in 

many,  even  fundamental,  views  and  beliefs ;  but  we  need  not,  and  cer- 
tainly shall  not,  thereby  be  prevented  from  admiring  his  purity  of 
heart,  his  unselfishness  and  tenderness,  his  singleness  and  indiverti- 
bility  of  aim,  the  vastness  of  his  knowledge,  and  the  penetrating  force 
of  his  intellect.  Neither  need  we  be  deterred  by  theologic  prejudice 
from  examining  his  works,  and  respectfully  accepting  the  truths  they 
contain.  By  such  acceptance  we  shall  be  hastening  the  justice  which 
time  is  certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  accord  to  him  and  them."^ 

1  The  Philosophical  System  of  AifTONio  Rosmini  Serbati,  by  Thos.  David- 
son, pp.  xlviii.,  xlix. 


ON  THE  RULING  PRINCIPLE  OF  METHOD. 


INTRODUCTION. 


1.  Method  is  a  part  of  logic,  and,  if  taken  in  all  its  bear- 
ings, may  be  said  to  be  itself  logic,  since  the  aim  of  the 
latter  is  throngbout  to  establish  the  method  of  conducting 
our  reasoning  processes.  But  the  present  work  does  not 
consider  method  under  this  wide  extension  of  its  meaning. 
We  must  begin,  therefore,  by  laying  down  the  limits  within 
which  we  shall  confine  our  essay. 

2.  The  human  mind  has  truth  for  its  object,  and,  in 
relation  to  this  most  noble  object,  it  exercises  various 
functions.  Some  of  these  functions  relate  to  truth  already 
known ;  others,  to  truth  which  is  still  unknown,  and  the 
knowledge  of  which  is  sought  for. 

3.  The  functions  of  the  mind,  in  relation  to  truths  already 
known,  may  be  reduced  to  three,  namely,  1.  The  communi- 
cation of  it  to  others  ;  2.  The  defence  of  it ;  and,  3.  The 
disentanglement  of  it  from  error. 

4.  The  functions  of  the  mind,  in  relation  to  truth  as  yet 
unknown,  and  which  it  seeks  to  know,  may  also  be  reduced 
to  three,  namely,  1.  To  find  the  demonstration  of  the  truths 
known ;  2.  To  find  the  consequences  to  be  derived  from 
fchem  through  their  development  and  application ;  and,  3 
and  lastly,  to  attain  through  the  senses,  by  observation 
and  experience,  new  data  on  which  to  base  entirely  new 
arguments. 

5.  Each  of  these  functions  of  the  human  mind  has  its  own 
method,  which  consists  of  an  assemblage  of  rules  for  the 
guidance  of  the  mind  itself  in  the  performance  of  its  work ; 

C9s) 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

hence  we  may  clistiuguish  six  kinds  of  method,  as  we  have 
distinguished  six  functions  of  the  mind  in  relation  to  truth. 
6.  These  are,  the  method  of  exposition^  which  teaches 
how  best  to  impart  our  knowledge  to  others  ;  the  polemical 
method^  which  teaches  us  how  to  defend  truth  and  repel  its 
assailants ;  the  critical  method^  which  teaches  how  to  sepa- 
rate the  true  from  the  false.  These  are  the  three  methods 
which  must  govern  our  mental  processes  in  relation  to  truths 
already  known.  The  remaining  three  are,  the  demonstrative 
method^  which  gives  the  rules  for  arriving  at  exact  demon- 
strations ;  the  inductive^  which  teaches  how  to  reach  the  truths 
yet  unknown,  through  inductions  and  conclusions  from  the 
known,  developing  from  the  knowledge  we  have  ascertained 
in  germ,  as  it  were,  the  far  larger  body  of  that  which  we  do 
not  know ;  and,  finally,  the  method  we  shall  call  the  percep- 
tive-inductive^ which  is  not  satisfied  with  arriving  at  new 
cognitions  by  inductions  and  conclusions  from  previously 
known  data,  but  which  leads  us  to  the  discovery  of  wholly 
new  data  through  the  perception  of  new  phenomena,  skil- 
fully produced  and  made  apparent  to  our  senses.  These  are 
the  three  methods  which  govern  the  functions  of  the  mind  in 
relation  to  truths  yet  unknown.  The  last  alone  is  the  experi- 
mental method  proper,  the  Baconian,  to  which  is  due  the  im- 
mense progress  of  physical  science  in  modern  times. ^ 

1  It  is  an  error  to  believe  that  each  of  these  metliods  has  a  mode  of  reasoning 
special  to  itself.  Lord  Bacon  was  wrong  in  his  notion  that,  in  the  perceptive- 
inductive  method,  induction  should  be  substituted  for  the  syllogism.  His  inaccu- 
rate dictum  was,  however,  repeated  as  an  echo  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other 
without  arousing  distrust  in  any  quarter.  The  truth  is,  that  every  induction  neces- 
sarily includes  a  syllogism,  and  that  the  syllogism  is  the  intrinsic  form  of  all 
human  reasoning  alike,  not  confined  to  one  special  method  of  reasoning,  but 
common  to  all  methods.  There  is,  however,  a  basis  of  truth  in  the  Baconian 
doctrine,  although  its  expression  is  erroneous,  and  it  is  this:  It  is  true,  1.  That, 
in  the  exposition  of  physical  and  experimental  facts,  it  is  unnecessary  to  use  the 
syllogistic  form,  which  would  be  long,  tedious,  and  pedantic  ;  2.  That  the  progress 
of  the  physical  sciences  does  not  depend  so  much  on  reasoning  as  on  the  new  data, 
the  new  phenomena  which  are  discovered  by  observation  and  experiment,  so  that 
the  reasoning  process  serves  principally  to  guide  tlie  observer  and  experimenter 
towards  the  discovery  of  the  new  facts  he  is  looking  for. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

7.  Now,  of  all  these  methods,  the  first  alone,  which  gives 
the  rules  for  imparting  truths  to  others,  is  the  subject  of  the 
present  work.  The  rest  requu-e  special  treatises,  all,  how- 
ever, being,  as  we  have  said,  included  under  logic,  of  which 
this  essay  does  not  pretend  to  be  more  than  a  fragment. 

But,  besides  being  a  fragment  of  the  science  underlying 
the  art  of  logic,  it  is  also  something  else,  — I  will  venture 
to  say,  something  more. 

8.  The  expository  method^  which  is  the  subject-matter  of 
the  science  of  correct  reasoning,  gives  the  rules  by  which 
our  knowledge  can  be  duly  imparted  to  others,  and  is  there- 
fore the  method  which  governs  teaching  in  general.  But, 
the  method  being  given,  the  master  or  teacher,  whoever  he 
be,  must  himself  apply  it  to  his  scholars  ;  and  that  applica- 
tion, that  use  of  the  rules  of  method  by  the  master  in  dealing 
with  his  pupils,  is  in  itself  an  art  having  fixed  principles, 
the  distinct  knowledge  of  which  is  most  useful  to  him.  To 
gather  up,  order,  and  simplify  these  principles  is  the  busi- 
ness of  pedagogy,  the  science  which  gives  the  rules  of  the 
great  art  of  education.  It  is  to  this  science  of  teaching  that 
we  have  turned  our  thoughts.  Caring  little  to  bring  out 
through  subtle  research  merely  speculative  laws  of  thought, 
we  should  leave  such  an  undertaking  to  others  richer  in 
leisure  than  ourselves,  were  nothing  further  involved  in 
the  matter.  But  we  are  urged  on  by  the  needs  of  so  many 
deserving  teachers,  who  daily  confess  having  to  proceed 
tentatively,  without  sure  guidance,  in  the  vast  and  perilous 
field  of  instruction,  and  constrained  by  their  complaints  over 
then'  wasted  labor.  We  are  moved  also  by  our  affection  for 
the  young,  and  by  charity  towards  our  kind,  —  towards 
humanity  ever  perishing  through  age  and  decay,  and  ever 
renewed  in  the  fresh  and  vigorous  life  of  new  generations. 
These,  like  green  shoots  from  an  old  trunk,  promise  at  first 
all  charms  of  beauty,  all  abundance  of  fruit,  but  soon  fall 


b  INTRODUCTION. 

away  and  wither  from  want  of  proper  treatment,  —  of  able 
hands  to  shield  them  from  external  injury,  to  uphold  and 
strengthen  them  in  their  weakness,  to  save  them  from  sink- 
ing miserably  downwards,  to  get  lost  and  choked  among  the 
briars  and  brambles,  and  creep  and  rot,  leaving  their  race  no 
better,  if  not  worse,  than  before. 

9.  It  is  a  fact  that,  at  the  present  time,  the  want  of  a  clear 
and  well-grounded  method  is  universally  felt  in  our  schools. 
The  principles  of  such  a  method  are  being  widely  sought, 
and  gradually  discerned  and  gathered  up,  "partly  from  the 
meditations  of  the  ablest  intellects,  partly  from  the  experi- 
ence of  the  best  teachers.  This  should  be  an  encourage- 
ment to  all  who  are  laboring  in  the  same  field  and  can  hope 
to  do  something  towards  supplying  this  great  need,  to  throw 
themselves  into  the  common  work  with  all  the  strength  they 
have.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  evident,  from  the  differences 
of  opinion  and  aims,  and  the  diversity  of  ways  adopted  by 
individual  educators,  as  well  as  by  their  disputes  among 
themselves,  that  the  art  of  method  is  still  wanting  in  a  firm 
basis  accepted  by  all,  and  which  could,  when  understood, 
be  rejected  by  none.  Even  the  governments  which  have 
undertaken  the  direction  of  education,  and  possess  all  the 
requisite  authority,  still  proceed  with  uncertain  steps  ;  and 
while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  education  under  the  control  of 
the  state  is  carried  on  with  greater  regularity,  on  the  other 
the  schools  placed  under  these  uniform  and  unchangeable 
rules  are  almost  always  the  last  to  admit  improvements,  and 
either  oppose  any  attempt  to  introduce  them,  by  excluding 
the  experiments  which  might  lead  to  them,  or,  if  any  foreign 
discovery  be  adopted,  its  external  form  only  is  taken,  while 
the  kernel  and  inner  spirit  of  it  is  left  aside.  These  are  the 
reasons  which  have  determined  us  to  give  this  work  rather 
a  pedagogic  than  a  logical  character,  and,  although,  in  so 
far  as  it  deals  with  the  principal   rules   of  the   expository 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

method  it  belongs  to  the  art  of  thinking,  yet,  by  taking  those 
rules,  and  applying  them  in  the  first  instance  to  the  teach- 
ing of  youth,  it  becomes  a  part  of  the  art  of  education. 

10.  Whether  we  have  attained  the  object  we  have  set 
before  us  in  this  book  it  is  not  for  us  to  judge.  Time 
alone,  which  develops  the  seeds  of  doctrine  cast  by  authors 
into  the  field  of  human  society,  as  it  develops  those  cast  by 
the  husbandman  into  the  earth,  can  prove  it  by  its  fruits. 
Meanwhile,  if  only  these  pages  can  afford  some,  be  it  ever 
so  little,  help  towards  the  right  training  of  our  youth,  I  shall 
feel  that  my  time  and  thought  have  been  abundantly  well 
spent.  If  otherwise,  it  will  not,  perhaps,  be  altogether 
useless  to  have  set  on  foot  a  bona  fide  discussion  of  questions 
relating  to  a  matter  of  such  importance.  At  the  worst,  sup- 
posing the  world  to  gain  nothing  from  what  I  have  said, 
those  who  love  their  kind  will,  I  hope,  give  me  credit  for  the 
intentions  which  led  me  to  undertake  this  task,  and  will 
feel  their  hearts  beat  in  unison  with  mine.  I  go  on  now  to 
show  briefly  from  what  point  of  view  I  propose  to  treat  the 
subject,  so  as  to  avoid  too  much  repetition  of  what  has  been 
already  well  said  by  others,  and  to  gather  up  the  arguments 
into  that  unity  wherein  lies  the  test  of  their  validity,  and 
which  is  the  pure  and  primal  source  of  all  science. 

11.  There  may  be  many  special  rules  in  the  expository 
method^  nor  are  these  unknown ;  but  it  appears  to  us  that 
not  only  would  each  gain  in  clearness  if  all  were  referred 
to  one,  but  that  the  careful  observance  of  the  method  itself 
would  be  much  facilitated  by  the  use  of  one  instead  of 
many.  By  the  faithful  application  of  that  one,  we  should 
also  find  without  further  trouble  what  we  are  seeking,  i.  e. 
the  regular  procedure  of  the  mind  in  reasoning.  For  this 
reason,  we  propose  to  direct  our  inquiry  to  finding  out  the 
ruling  principle  whence  is  derived  the  whole  method  of 
exposition,  —  an  attempt  which,  we  believe,  has  never  yet 


8  INTKODUCTION. 

been  made.  This  essay  will  thereby  assume  a  scientific 
character  ;  for  in  no  subject  can  we  arrive  at  scientific  exact- 
ness and  a  true  system,  until  its  more  special  divisions  have 
been  classed  under  the  more  general,  and  the  latter  under 
the  most  general  of  all,  whence  all  are  derived  as  from 
the  fountain-head.  In  this  last  alone  is  there  rest  for  the 
human  mind,  which  is  never  satisfied  till  it  has  reached  this 
final  link  of  the  chain,  the  ultimate  most  simple  and  absolute 
reason. 

Should  we  succeed  in  reaching  this  height,  far  from  feeling 
weariness  or  fatigue,  we  shall  find  refreshment  and  delight 
in  beholding  the  vast  fields  below  us,  which  we  shall  survey 
at  a  glance  in  all  their  aggregate  relations,  their  order,  and 
the  wonderful  variety  of  their  phenomena,  and  shall  be  able, 
without  effort,  to  take  in  all  their  parts,  and  measure  their 
relative  value.  In  other  words,  the  mind  in  possession  of 
a  comprehensive  scientific  principle  can  grasp  the  multitude 
of  ever-new  conclusions  which  flow  from  it,  develop  and 
arrange  them  in  their  due  order,  and,  by  bringing  them  into 
comparison,  assign  to  each  its  place  and  value  in  relation 
to  the  rest.  We  will  therefore  at  once  take  in  hand  this 
main  inquiry,  through  which  we  shall  arrive  by  degrees  at 
all  the  other  questions  we  have  to  deal  with,  deriving  them 
with  ease  as  corollaries  from  the  first. 


BOOK    I.^ 

ON    THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

12.  "It  is  an  old  maxim  in  common  use,  that  whosoever 
will  rightly  learn  great  things  must  not  attempt  to  grapple 
with  their  whole  extent  at  once,  but  must  begin  with  their 
smaller  and  easier  parts." ^ 

This  rule  of  method  laid  down  by  Plato  was  declared 
by  him  to  be,  even  in  his  time,  as  old  and  commonly  ac- 
cepted as  it  is  self-evident.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake, 
however,  to  underrate  a  maxim  because  it  has  become  trite. 
It  is  rather  the  habit  of  the  best  and  profoundest  minds  to 
find  the  deepest  wisdom  in  those  truths  which  are  the  most 
common,  which  every  one  knows  and  repeats,  which  none 
can  dispute,  and  none  avoid  seeing.  But  to  do  this  we 
must  look  far  below  their  common  aspect  to  their  inward 
depth  and  power,  where  lie  the  true  foundations,  the  true 
reason,  of  whatever  is  accepted  as  scientific.     As  it  is,,  how- 

1  This  book  was  published  by  Prof.  Dom.  Berti  in  the  form  of  an  appen- 
dix to  his  work  on  Method  Jj^plied  to  Elementary  Teaching  (Turin,  1849)  with 
the  name  of  Prof.  Tarditi.  No  moral  blame  can  be  attached  on  this  account 
to  Rosmini,  Tarditi,  or  Berti.  Rosmini  wrote  the  book  in  1839  ;  Tarditi  had  read 
and  copied  it  for  his  own  use  in  1845;  and  Berti,  having  found  it  among  his  papers 
after  his  death,  published  it  as  a  thing  worthy  to  see  the  light.  The  public, 
which  received  it  with  satisfaction,  was  entirely  the  gainer,  though  its  usefulness 
was  probably  a  good  deal  impaired  by  its  detachment  from  the  other  parts,  which 
in  the  present  work  illustrate  and  confirm  it.  —  Francesco  Paoli. 

-  Plato  in  the  Dialogue  entitled  the  Sopll  1st :  oo-a  h'av  rdv  ix^yakuiv  See  SiaTrovelo-Oai. 
Ka\u)<;,  Trepl  riov  tolovtuiv  fieSo/crat  naat  kol  nakai,  to  irpoTepov  iv  crjun/cpot?  /cat  paoaiv 
avTo,  Selv  /w.eAeTai',  npiv  ay  Iv  avTOt?  rot?  jaeyiVTOis-     (rage  218  C.) 

9 


10  ON   THE   KULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

ever,  only  the  few,  the  exceptional  minds,  who  thus  know 
how  to  measure  the  importance  of  the  trite  maxims  which 
guide  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  it  happens  that  these 
primary  truths,  though  perfectly  well  known,  are  seldom 
applied  as  the  rule  of  thought  and  action,  or  are  applied 
uncertainly  and  inefficiently.  Having  once  been  recognized, 
they  are  forthwith  passed  by,  in  the  search  for  newer  and 
more  special  rules,  which  are  held  to  be  more  precious,  pre- 
cisely because  they  are  less  obvious  and  are  valued  in  pro- 
portion to  their  unfamiliarity.  This  explains  why,  in  spite 
of  the  many  centuries  during  which  it  has  been  known  that 
the  true  method  of  teaching  proceeds  from  the  lesser  to  the 
greater,  from  that  which  is  easy  to  that  which  is  difficult, 
from  the  known  to  the  unknown  by  insensible  gradations ; 
yet  to  this  day,  in  the  full  blaze  of  science,  it  is  rare  to 
find  books  intended  for  the  instruction  of  the  young,  that 
faithfully  follow  this  easy  and  natural  order.  It  is  equally 
rare  to  find  teachers  thus  adapting  their  lessons  to  the  minds 
of  their  pupils,  and  leading  them,  as  it  were  by  the  hand, 
from  the  lower  to  the  higher  by  a  pleasant  and  gently  in- 
clined ascent,  until  they  reach  the  lofty  regions  of  rarer 
atmosphere  and  perpetual  light.  Both  in  the  text-books 
recommended  by  those  who  direct  education,  and  in  the 
lessons  given,  there  is  the  same  want  of  true  method.  Au- 
thors and  teachers,  satisfied  with  knowing  the  excellent  rule 
we  have  pointed  out,  and  recognizing  its  indisputable  truth, 
set  it  aside  at  the  very  moment  when  in  the  process  of  teach- 
ing they  should  keep  it  most  carefully  in  view,  and  consult 
it  in  the  construction  of  every  sentence  they  write  and 
speak,  as  an  infallible  oracle,  however  trite  may  be  its  utter- 
ances. It  is  disdained  by  those  who  hold  themselves  far 
above  the  vulgar  herd ;  and  hence,  in  their  ambitious  pur- 
suit of  science,  they  are  apt  to  let  go  of  common  sense ; 
while  the  young,   whom  they  should  be   guiding   upwards, 


NEED    OF    SCIENTIFIC    EXPOSITION.  11 

either  stay  idling  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  or  the  nobler 
spirits  among  them,  pressing  forward  unguided,  fall  ex- 
hausted and  shattered  on  the  cliffs  by  the  way. 

13.  It  is  true  that  the  application  of  a  pri^^ciple  so  sim- 
ple in  itself  is  by  no  means  simple.  It  requires  much 
thought,  and  above  all  an  inflexible  purpose,  to  apply  it  to 
every,  even  the  least,  detail  of  teaching,  so  that  not  a  sen- 
tence—  nay,  not  even  a  word  or  sign — shall  depart  from  this 
law  of  method ;  and  it  is  among  the  ablest  minds  that  have 
written  for  the  young  that  we  find  most  zeal  in  such  per- 
severing and  ingenious  application.  But  though,  by  their 
noble  efforts  to  conform  their  teaching  to  their  principle, 
they  produce  excellent  results,  and  greatly  advance  their 
pupils,  their  art  is  lost  for  other  writers  and  teachers,  to 
whom  they  do  not  transmit  the  observations  they  have  made, 
or  the  rules  for  its  application  which  they  have  discovered 
by  practice.  It  remains,  therefore,  still  a  desideratum,  that 
some  one  should  mark  out  the  road  which  every  teacher 
ought  to  follow  in  order  to  conform  his  lessons  to  the  maxim 
quoted  above  from  the  Greek  philosopher,  and  lead  the 
tender  minds  of  his  pupils  by  easy  and  gentle  gradations 
to  the  heights  of  knowledge.  This  is  the  work  we  propose 
to  do,  or,  at  least,  attempt ;  and,  as  the  shortest  way  to 
it,  we  shall  begin  by  addressing  ourselves  to  the  following 
problem :  — 

What  is  the  ruling  principle  of  method?  or,  in  other  words, 
how  shall  we  find  the  sure  rule  by  which  the  teacher  of 
youth  shall  know  what  things  he  must  begin  with,  and 
what  should  follow,  so  that  the  child  who  hears  him  may 
be  led  on,  by  gradations  always  duly  adapted  to  his  powers, 
from  what  he  knows  to  what  he  does  not  know  and  has  yet 
to  be  taught? 


12  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 


CHAPTER    I. 

ON     THE     GRADATIONS     WHICH     MUST      BE      OBSERVED     IN     THE 
MENTAL    OPERATIONS    REQUIRED    OF    CHILDREN. 

14.  It  is  evident  that,  for  this  purpose,  we  must  determine 
what  is  easy  and  what  is  difficult  for  children  to  understand, 
and  that  we  require  an  accurate  test  of  the  various  degrees 
of  difficulty  in  the  various  parts  of  any  subject  of  instruc- 
tion. Here  we  have  to  take  into  account  the  differences 
in  quality  and  power  of  different  minds,  which  vary  in 
nothing  so  much  as  in  their  more  or  less  quickness  of  appre- 
hension in  passing  from  one  idea  to  another.  The  slower 
minds  are  often  left  behind,  not  because  the  ideas  them- 
selves are  beyond  their  capacity,  but  because  they  move 
slowly ;  and  while  they  are  still  laboriously  toiling  over  the 
first  steps,  the  teacher,  without  waiting  for  them,  passes  on 
to  the  next  and  the  next,  so  that  they  lose  the  connecting 
links,  and  are  left  like  travellers  on  a  long  journey  whose 
guide  has  hurried  on  out  of  their  sight.  Such  minds  are 
reckoned  the  weaker  and  inferior,  but  are  so,  really,  only  in  so 
far  as  they  are  unable  to  follow  the  series  of  ideas  with  the 
average  degree  of  quickness,  and,  having  lost  the  thread 
of  connection,  they  are  brought  to  a  stand  for  want  of  a 
bridge,  as  it  were,  from  one  idea  to  the  other.  Hence  also 
the  erroneous  opinion  that  there  are  subjects  beyond  certain 
intellectual  capacities,  whereas,  in  truth,  those  capacities  fail 
to  reach  them,  not  from  any  inability  to  attain  them  if  time 
were  given  to  take  each  necessary  step  in  due  succession, 
but  only  because  the  road  has  been  hidden  or  broken  up. 

15.  Everything,  therefore,  depends  on  determining  what 
is  the  natural  gradation  of  ideas  ;  how  the  mind  passes  from 
one  to  another ;  which  are  those  ideas  that  are  connected 


DUE    GRADATION   OF   OBJECTS.  13 

and  stand,  as  it  were,  in  immediate  proximity  ;  which  follow 
next  on  these,  and  so  on  to  the  most  remote. 

It  will  be  evident  to  all  that  we  are  now  on  the  ground 
of  idealogy,  and  that  it  is  from  that  science  we  must  seek 
the  full  and  effectual  solution  of  the  proposed  problem. 
I  might  begin  by  assuming  that  the  reader  is  already 
acquainted  with  the  principles  of  idealogy  which  I  have 
already  published,  and  to  which  this  essay  is  an  addition 
in  the  way  of  development  and  application.  But,  in  order 
that  those  who  do  not  possess  this  knowledge  may  be  able 
to  follow  me,  I  will  here  and  there  point  out  the  leading 
idealogical  principles,  and  summarize  what  I  have  said 
in  my  previous  works  on  the  subject,  wherever  it  may 
be  useful  to  make  the  reasoning  clear. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  GRADATION  OF  MENTAL  OPERATIONS  DEPENDS  ON  THE 
GRADATION  OF  OBJECTS  TO  WHICH  THE  ATTENTION  OF 
CHILDREN    IS     DIRECTED. 

16.  Let  US  then  enter  into  the  human  mind,  and  see  what 
is  the  invariable  law  of  its  progress,  the  natural  scale  of 
thought  by  which  it  ascends.  The  law  must  hold  good  for 
all  intellects  alike,  because  it  is  intrinsic  to  the  human  mind. 
The  scale  must  be  the  same  for  all  minds,  great  or  small, 
without  a  single  step  being  omitted  by  any,  although  some 
minds  will  go  faster  and  some  slower. 

17.  In  order  to  help  ourselves  towards  the  discovery  of 
this  law,  let  us  start  from  any  one  thought  with  which  our 
minds  are  occupied,  and,  reducing  it  to  its  elementary  com- 
ponents, let  us  trace  the  thoughts  which  must  have  preceded 
and  those  which  must  follow  it.  We  shall  thus  ascertain 
the  place  it  holds  in  the  intellectual  scale,  which  step  stands 
immediately  below  and  which  next  abore  it. 


14  ON   THE   BULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

18.  Whatever  the  thought  we  select  for  examination,  it 
must  have  an  object ;  but  neither  is  the  object  the  thought, 
nor  the  thought  the  object.  What  then  is  thought?  It  is 
the  act  by  which  the  mind  fixes  its  intellectual  attention 
upon  anything,  say  a  flower,  or  carries  it  from  one  thing 
to  another,  —  from  the  flower,  a  rose  for  instance,  to  its 
species  or  class  ;  thinking  of  it  as  a  noisette,  or  China  or 
damask  rose,  or  as  belonging  to  a  larger  species  or  class, 

—  that  of  roses  in  general,  or  to  the  still  larger  family  of  the 
Rosacese.  What  is  the  object  of  thought?  It  is  the  term  of 
this  act,  the  thing  on  which  attention  is  fixed,  —  in  the  above 
case,  first,  a  flower  in  general ;  then  the  noisette,  China  or 
damask  rose ;  then  roses  in  general ;  and  then  the  family 
of  rosaceous  plants.  Who  would  say  that  these  objects, which 
may  be  so  various,  are  the  acts  of  the  mind?  It  would 
be  as  absurd  as  to  say  that  the  objects  which  pass  before 
the  eyes  are  the  acts  of  the  eyes  immovably  looking  at 
them.  It  is,  therefore,  certain  that  every  thought  is  the 
result  of  two  distinct  factors, — i.  e.  the  act  of  the  mind  that 
thinks  (in  which  lies,  properly  speaking,  the  nature  of 
thought),  and  the  objects  of  which  it  thinks,  and  which 
are  the  given  conditions  of  thought ;  for  without  objects 
the  mind  cannot  think. 

19.  Now  the  act  of  the  mind  is  always  an  act  of  the 
intellectual  attention  fixed  on  some  object  or  another ;  but 
the  objects  may  vary  indefinitely.  If,  therefore,  there  is 
a  fixed  law  whereby  the  mind  passes  from  one  object  of  its 
thought  to  another,  that  law  must  be  found  in  the  objects, 

—  in  the  manner,  that  is,  in  which  they  present  themselves 
successively  to  the  mind. 


HOW   OBJECTS   ARE   PRESENTED   TO  THE  MlND.  15 


CHAPTER    III. 

ON  THE  NATURAL  ORDER  IN  WHICH  OBJECTS  PRESENT  THEM- 
SELVES TO  THE  HUMAN  MIND,  FIRST  DISCERNED  IN  CLAS- 
SIFICATIONo 

20.  Let  us,  then,  inquire  how  objects  present  themselves 
to  the  mind,  which  come  first  and  which  follow,  and  this 
will  lead  us  to  the  natural  and  necessary  order  of  thought 
we  are  in  search  of. 

21.  If  I  see  a  yellow- white  rose,  I  cannot  classify  it 
among  the  flowering  plants,  unless  I  have  first  distin- 
guished flowering  plants  from  all  others.  The  thought, 
therefore,  by  which  I  classify  the  rose  among  flowering- 
plants  could  not  arise  in  my  mind  except  on  condition  that 
I  had  first  had  another  thought,  —  namely,  that  by  which  I 
separated,  in  my  mind,  flowers  from  all  other  forms  of  vege- 
tation. If,  moreover,  I  say  to  myself.  This  flower  belongs 
to  the  family  of  the  Rosaceae,  I  prove  that,  besides  having 
distinguished  flowering  plants  from  all  other  plants,  I  have 
also  distinguished  the  Rosaceae.  among  flowering  plants  in 
general.  This  new  thought,  then,  presupposes  not  one 
thought  alone,  but  at  least  two,  —  the  two  distinguishing 
thoughts,  by  one  of  which  I  separate  flowers  from  other 
forms  of  vegetation,  and  by  the  other  the  Rosacese  from 
other  flowers.  Unless  my  mind  had  already  held  these  two 
thoughts,  it  would  be  unable  to  arrive  at  the  third,  and  could 
never  pronounce  the  sentence,  "This  flower  belongs  to  the 
family  of  the  Rosaceae." 

But,  if  I  go  on  to  distinguish  roses  among  the  Rosaceae, 
it  is  evident  that  I  must  previously  have  had  three  thoughts 
at  least ;  since  I  could  not  distinguish  roses  among  the 
Rosaceae  if  I  had  not  first  distinguished  the  Rosaceae  from 
other  flowering  plants,  and  flowering  from  all  other  plants. 
•  By  parity  of  reasoning,  we  shall  find  that  I  cannot  aflfirm 


16  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

to  myself,  ""This  is  a  China  rose,"  unless  I  make  one  more 
distinction  which  supposes  all  the  preceding  ones  ;  nor  can 
I  finally  perceive  that  the  rose  I  see  belongs  to  the  kind 
named  by  gardeners  Adelaide  of  Como,  unless  I  make  two 
more  distinctions  in  addition  to  those  that  went  before. 

22.  Be  it  noted  that  I  am  speaking  of  distinct  thought, 
and  not  of  the  mere  acceptance  of  a  name  without  knowl- 
edge of  the  thing  named ;  for  assuredly  it  is  possible  for 
me  to  know  that  the  white  object  I  see  is  called  Adelaide 
of  Como,  without  knowing  that  it  is  a  China  rose,  or  that 
it  is  a  rose  at  all,  or  that  it  is  one  of  the  Rosacea3,  or 
a  flower,  or  a  plant.  On  the  contrary,  I  cannot  affirm,  with 
clear  understanding  of  what  I  am  affirming,  that  this  thing 
which  delights  my  eyes  is  an  Adelaide  of  Como,  without 
knowing,  first  of  all,  that  it  is  a  flowering  plant,  of  the 
family  of  the  Rosacese,  and  properly  a  China  rose,  and, 
moreover,  that  kind  among  China  roses  to  which  gardeners 
have  been  pleased  to  give  that  name  ;  for  all  this  is  signified 
by  the  words  "Adelaide  of  Como"  as  designating  the  object. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

CONTINUATION. —  METHOD    OF    TEACHING    CHILDREN    THE    CLAS- 
SIFICATION  OF    THINGS. 

23.  Now,  let  us  bring  a  little  child  into  the  garden  with 
the  intention  of  teaching  him  all  that  we  have  mentioned 
above,  and  place  him  before  the  Adelaide  rose.  How  shall 
I  begin  my  lesson,  supposing  him  to  be  of  very  tender  age, 
and  never  to  have  been  in  a  garden  before,  nor  to  have  seen 
either  plants  or  flowers  ? 

There  are  three  ways  in  which  I  can  lead  him  to  make 
all  the  distinctions  above  indicated  :  — 

(1.)  I  can  begin  by  telling  him  the  name  of  the  rose  he 
sees,    and   then   take   him   on  from   the   individual   to   the. 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   OBJECTS.  17 

species  or  smaller  class,  next  to  the  larger  and  yet  larger 
classes,  until  I  bring  him  to  the  knowledge  of  the  genera  of 
plants. 

(2.)  I  can  take  the  contrary  way,  making  him,  that  is, 
first  distinguish  the  rose  he  sees  as  a  plant,  and  then  from 
the  genus  lead  him  to  the  species  or  larger  class,  and  so  down 
to  the  smaller  classes,  until  finally  I  make  him  observe  the 
individuality  of  that  particular  plant. 

(3.)  Lastly,  I  can,  without  attending  to  any  gradations 
or  order,  speak  to  the  child  of  roses,  of  plants  and  the  other 
classifications,  just  as  they  come,  without  thought,  to  my 
lips. 

24.  It  is  evident  that  this  last  method  is  the  worst,  or 
rather  it  is  the  negation  of  all  method.  The  child  would 
be  constrained  to  jump  in  thought  now  from  the  smaller 
to  the  larger  class,  now  from  the  larger  to  the  smaller ; 
while  as  yet  he  knows  nothing  of  classes,  and  still  less 
of  the  signs  by  which  he  could  recognize  the  respective 
extent  of  the  classes. 

25.  As  regards  the  other  two  methods,  let  us  compare 
them,  first  with  the  view  simply  to  observe  the  different 
operations  of  the  child's  mind  in  following  the  lesson  we 
are  giving  him,  and  secondly  to  find  out  which  of  the  two 
methods  and  corresponding  series  of  mental  operations  is 
the  easier,  the  most  convenient  to  him. 

26.  If  I  want  to  lead  him  from  the  individual  to  the 
general,  I  shall  tell  him  first  that  the  beautiful  object  he 
sees  is  called  Adelaide  of  Como ;  then  I  shall  tell  him  that 
it  is  a  China  rose,  then  that  it  is  a  rose,  then  one  of  the 
Eosacese,  then  that  it  is  a  flowering  plant,  and  lastly  a 
plant.  If  I  want  instead  to  lead  him  from  the  general 
to  the  individual,  I  shall  begin  by  telling  him  that  the 
individual  object  is  a  plant,  then  that  it  is  a  flowering 
plant,  then  one  of  the  Rosacea?,  then  a  rose,  then  a  China 


18  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

rose,  and  at  last  that  it  is  an  Adelaide  of  Como.  In  passing 
through  the  first  series  of  ideas  the  child's  mind  is  com- 
pelled to  fix  its  attention  first  on  the  differences  of  things 
and  then  on  their  resemblances  ;  for  the  individual  is  indi- 
vidual only  in  virtue  of  its  unlikeness  to  all  others,  and  the 
individual  of  a  special  class  is  an  individual  of  that  class 
only  in  virtue  of  its  unlikeness  to  the  other  special  classes 
which  make  up  the  genus.  From  the  differences  he  then 
passes  to  the  resemblances, — first,  to  those  common  to  the 
smaller  number,  then  to  those  common  to  a  larger  number. 
For  he  cannot  rise  from  the  individual  objects  called  Ade- 
laide roses  to  the  conception  of  the  objects  called  China 
roses,  unless  he  observes — 1.  That  there  are  resemblances 
in  several  of  these  objects,  so  that  all  alike  are  named 
Adelaide  roses;  2.  That  there  are  other  resemblances 
belonging  not  only  to  these  first  objects,  but  to  many 
others,  which  hence  are  named  all  together  China  roses. 
In  order  to  rise  to  the  conception  of  the  rose  in  general, 
he  must  observe  a  third  series  of  such  resemblances  common 
to  a  much  larger  number  of  objects,  on  which  rests  this 
third  and  wider  classification.  A  fourth  series  of  observa- 
tion will  be  required  to  lead  him  to  the  conception  of  the 
Rosaceae  as  distinguished  from  the  preceding  conception ; 
a  fifth,  to  take  him  on  to  that  of  flowering  plants ;  and, 
finally,  a  sixth,  in  order  that  he  may  arrive  at  the  wider 
conception,  that  to  which  we  want  to  lead  him,  —  the  con- 
ception of  plants  in  general. 

27.  In  passing  through  the  second  series  of  ideas,  which 
is  the  inversion  of  the  first,  the  mind  of  the  child  is  obliged 
to  fix  attention  first  on  the  resemblances  instead  of  the  dif- 
ferences of  objects  ;  and  he  has  to  consider  the  former  as  the 
limits  of  the  latter,  passing  step  by  step  from  the  wider 
range  of  resemblances  to  the  narrower.  Thus  he  learns, 
first,   the    widest   range    of   resemblances  which    form   the 


PKESENTATION    OF    OBJECTS.  19 

genus,  and  then  the  differences  which  more  and  more 
restrict  and  break  up  the  genus  into  narrower  and  nar- 
rower classes.  Having  recognized  the  widest  resemblances 
which  constitute  the  class  of  plants  in  general,  he  must  next 
learn  the  limit  of  those  resemblances,  —  namely,  the  differ- 
ences which  mark  out  flowering  plants  from  all  others ; 
then,  among  those  flowering  plants,  he  must  distinguish 
the  differences  that  mark  the  class  of  Rosacese ;  then 
those  which  among  the  Rosacese  mark  the  minor  class  of 
roses  ;  then  the  differences  between  China  and  other  roses  ; 
and,  finally,  the  ultimate  difference  between  the  Adelaide 
of  Como  and  all  other  China  roses. 

28.  These,  then,  are  the  two  series  of  operations  through 
which  the  child  must  pass.  Which  of  these  will  he  find  the 
easier  to  follow  ?  Will  it  be  less  difficult  for  him  to  find  out 
the  differences  than  the  resemblances  of  things?  Is  the 
mental  operation,  by  which  we  discern  that  two  or  more 
things  are  alike,  more  simple  or  more  complicated  than 
that  by  which  we  discern  that  they  are  unlike?  That  is 
the  question. 

To  find  the  answer,  we  must  go  on  studying  the  two 
modes  of  operation  in  the  child's  mind,  and  ascertain^  by 
an  accurate  analysis,  which  of  the  two  is  the  more  simple 
or  complicated. 

29.  If  I  tell  the  child,  whom  I  suppose  to  be  at  the  earli- 
est stage  of  mental  development,  that  the  beautiful  object 
he  sees  is  named  Adelaide  of  Como,  he  will  certainly  be 
unable  to  affix  to  that  name  the  meaning  attached  to  it  by 
gardeners,  who  express  by  it  one  of  the  latest  and  most 
restricted  classes  of  the  rose.  To  the  child,  therefore, 
this  denomination  can  be  only  a  proper  name,  arbitrarily 
affixed  to  that  object ;  he  simply  associates  the  sensation 
caused  by  the  sight  of  the  object  with  the  sensation  caused 
by  the  sound  that  reaches  his  ears.     But,  when  I  go  on  with 


20  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

my  lesson  and  tell  him  in  addition  that  there  are  many 
Adelaide  roses,  and  show  them  to  him  in  tlie  garden,  he 
is  obliged  to  change  the  meaning  he  had  first  attributed 
to  the  Avord,  —  to  go  back  on  the  act  of  the  mind  by  which 
he  took  the  name  for  the  sign  of  the  one  individual  he  saw, 
and  to  substitute  for  it  another  by  which  he  decides  that 
Adelaide  of  Como  is  not  a  proper  name,  but  a  name  com- 
mon to  many  similar  objects. 

30.  If  I  then  show  him  another  rose,  named  Sappho^  it  is 
probable  that  he  will  call  it  an  Adelaide  of  Como,  because, 
however  different  its  color,  its  form  is  similar.  I  shall  teach 
him  to  distinguish  it  by  pointing  out  the  bright-purple  color 
of  the  one  to  which  I  give  the  name  of  Sapplio^  compared 
with  the  yellow- white  of  the  former.  I  shall  also  teach  him 
that  the  word  SapjyJio  does  not  designate  a  single  object,  but 
a  class  of  similar  objects,  showing  him  many  Sapphos  in  the 
garden,  with  the  result  as  before,  that,  having  first  taken 
Sappho  to  be  the  name  of  an  individual,  he  will  correct  this 
first  impression,  and  accept  it  as  the  name  of  a  class  of 
things. 

31.  Moreover,  before  going  further,  he  will  have  to  cor- 
rect a  third  erroneous  impression.  For,  at  first,  before 
I  had  shown  him  the  Sappho,  he  knew  only  the  Adelaide, 
and  thought  there  was  no  other  class  ;  so,  that  when  he 
saw  the  Sappho  he  at  once  applied  to  it  the  name  Adelaide. 
But  afterwards,  on  hearing  that  its  name  was  Sappho,  not 
Adelaide,  he  perceived  his  mistake,  and  restricted  the  class 
Adelaide  within  limits  which  he  had  first  overpassed. 

32.  We  come  now  to  the  third  step,  and  I  shall  try 
to  make  him  understand  that  both  Adelaides  and  Sapphos 
have  a  name  common  to  both,  i.e.  China  roses.  In  order  to 
understand  this,  the  child  will  have  to  perform  several  men- 
tal operations,  which  are  these  :  — 

First,  he  will  have  to  recognize  that  the  Adelaides  and 


PKESENTATION   OF  OBJECTS.  21 

Sapphos,  which  he  had  at  the  outset  distinguished  by  such 
wholly  different  names,  have  certain  features  in  common 
which  make  them  susceptible  of  receiving  a  common  name. 
This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  will  have  to  correct  and 
change  for  the  fourth  time  the  meaning  he  had  mentally 
given  to  the  two  words  Adelaide  and  Sappho,  For,  as 
before,  seeing  the  Sappho,  he  believed  that  there  was  no 
other  class  than  the  Adelaides,  and  consequently  placed 
in  it  the  purple  rose  also ;  so,  having  learnt  to  give  the 
latter  a  wholly  different  name,  he  separated  entirely  the 
Adelaide  from  the  Sappho,  without  attending  at  all  to  what 
they  might  have  in  common.  But  now,  when  I  teach  him 
the  common  name  of  China  roses,  I  make  him  reflect  that 
the  words  Adelaide  and  Sappho  are  not  used  to  signify  those 
objects  absolutely,  but  only  to  signify  that  in  each  by  which 
it  is  distinguished  from  the  other,  and  that  there  is  another 
name,  common  to  both,  that  of  China  roses,  which  is  used 
to  signify  that  in  which  they  are  alike. 

33.  I  will  now  lead  him  on  to  know  a  yet  wider  class 
of  these  lovely  objects  than  that  of  China  roses, — ^.  e.  the 
class  of  roses  in  general.  For  this  purpose,  I  must,  follow- 
ing the  same  course  as  before,  make  him  recognize,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  two  varieties  of  China  roses,  the  Adelaide  and 
Sappho,  two  other  varieties,  say  the  damask  rose,  that,  for 
example,  called  by  gardeners  Admirable^  with  white  petals 
edged  with  crimson,  and  the  red  variety  they  call  Graciosa, 
From  these  two  varieties  I  shall  lead  my  pupil  to  the  species 
damask  rose.  But  throughout  this  process  he  will  again 
(as  when  I  brought  him  to  know  the  China  rose)  receive 
facts,  and  then  have  to  correct  in  turn  four  erroneous 
impressions ;  and  to  these  will  be  added  a  fifth,  namely,  the 
following  :  — 

When,  after  showing  my  little  pupil  the  Admirable  and 
the  Graciosa,  I  ask  him  what  name  will  be  common  to  them 


22  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

both,  he  will  immediately  answer,  ''China  roses,"  because  as 
yet  he  knows  no  other  species,  and  believes  the  Adelaide 
a  lid  Sappho,  Admirable  and  Graciosa,  to  be  four  varieties  of 
the  same  class.  I  help  him  to  correct  this  error  by  telling 
him  that  the  two  latter  varieties  are  not  China  but  damask 
roses,  and  by  making  him  observe  the  peculiarities  which 
distinguish  the  China  from  the  damask  rose. 

Arrived  at  this  stage,  I  can  also  make  him  observe  that 
both  the  China  and  the  damask  sort  are  alike  roses,  thus 
raising  his  mind  to  the  conception  of  a  larger  class,  includ- 
ing the  damask  as  well  as  China  species. 

34.  But  the  infant  mind  of  my  little  pupil  could  not 
attain  to  this  larger  conception  without  first  correcting 
a  new  error  regarding  the  meaning  of  the  names  China 
and  damask  roses,  —  names  which,  in  the  first  instance, 
serve  to  indicate  those  two  varieties  as  altogether  different, 
and  having  nothing  in  common.  He  attends  to  their  resem- 
blances only  when  he  is  told  that  they  have  a  common  name, 
that  of  roses. ^ 

35.  I  now  go  on  and  show  my  pupil  a  white  thorn  in 
flower  in  the  garden,  and  a  medlar  also  in  flower.  He  will 
at  once  take  these  flowers  for  roses  ;  but  I  shall  tell  him  he 
is  mistaken,  and  that  the  flowers  he  sees  are  not  roses,  but 
belong  to  the  Rosaceae.  I^oor  child  !  Once  more  he  will  have 
to  reform  the  conception  he  had  formed  of  roses ^  —  that  is,  he 
must  restrict  the  meaning  he  had  given  to  the  word  "rose," 
and  learn  to  understand  that  not  all  the  flowers  which  resem- 
ble a  rose  are  roses.  Then,  prompted  by  the  word  ''Rosa- 
ceae" which  he  hears  from  me,  he  will  fix  his  attention  on 
that  which  distinguishes  the  roses  already  known  to  him  and 
the  Rosaceae  I  am  now  showing  him.  Thus,  for  the  tenth 
time,  he  will  have  to  correct  a  mental  error :  but  he  is  still 

1  The  child's  mind  is  assisted  at  this  stage  by  the  names  themselves,  China 
jgse  ^jid  damask  rose,  in  which  there  is  the  word  "  rose  "  cpmnion  to  both, 


MENTAL  ERKOES  INDUCED.  23 

ignorant  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  Rosacese,  —  igno- 
rant that  it  designates  a  larger  class  of  things,  in  which 
roses  are  included ;  ignorant,  therefore,  that,  while  all  roses 
are  Rosaceae,  not  all  the  Rosaceae  are  roses. 

36.  I  must  therefore  go  back  again,  and,  beginning  with 
the  individual  white  thorn  he  has  seen,  make  him  understand 
that  that  name  indicates  not  only  the  individual  before  him, 
but  a  whole  species  divided  into  many  varieties ;  and  that 
he  must,  as  before,  make  a  fourfold  correction  in  his  mind 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word.  Then  I  must  go  through 
the  same  process  in  connection  with  the  flower  of  the  med- 
lar ;  first  causing  the  child  to  fall  into,  and  then  helping  him 
out  of,  five  more  mistakes.  Finally,  I  must  lead  him  to 
compare  the  flower  of  the  thorn  with  that  of  the  medlar, 
and,  after  making  him  perceive  their  differences,  make  him 
observe  their  resemblances  and  the  resemblances  which  they 
have  also  with  roses,  so  that  he  shall  arrive  at  last  at  under- 
standing that  the  thorn  and  the  medlar  and  the  rose  are 
three  classes  of  the  Rosaceae.  But  in  passing  through  these 
successive  steps  he  falls  into  and  has  to  correct  two  more 
errors,  one  of  which  consists  in  taking  the  white  thorn  for 
a  medlar  or  for  a  rose  ;  the  second,  in  taking  the  names 
''white  thorn"  and  "medlar"  as  absolute,  and  not  merely 
signifying  objects  in  some  respects  unlike,  but  having 
besides  a  name  Rosacese,  common  to  roses,  to  thorns 
and  to  medlars,  signifying  some  properties  common  to  all. 
Only  then  does  he  begin  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "Rosacese." 

37.  Up  to  this  point  the  child  thus  led  on  has  fallen  into 
at  least  twenty-two  mental  errors,  which  he  has  had  as  often 
to  correct.  Let  us  go  on.  I  must  now  teach  him  to  dis- 
tinguish the  Rosaceae  from  other  flowers.  If  I  show  him 
a  lily  or  a  jessamine  and  ask  him  what  it  is,  he  will  probably 
answer  that  it  is  a  Rosacea,  for  as  yet  he  knows  no  wider 


24  ON   THE   EULING   TRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

class.  I  must,  therefore,  tell  him  that  the  flower  he  is  look- 
ing at  is  not  a  Rosacea,  but  a  lily  or  jessamine.  Having 
learnt  this,  he  must'  restrict  the  meaning  of  the  word 
''Rosacese,"  which  before  had  signified  to  him  the  general 
class  of  all  the  objects  he  saw  in  the  garden,  and  apply 
it  only  to  a  special  class  among  them.  Thus  he  commits 
and  then  corrects  a  mistake  about  the  word  "  Rosacese," 
being  the  twenty- third. 

38.  But,  if  I  want  to  make  him  understand  that  the  words 
'4ily"  and  "jessamine"  do  not  indicate  only  the  individuals^ 
I  am  showing  him,  but  families,  such  as  the  Rosacese,  divided 
again  into  classes  and  species,  and  the  latter  into  varieties, 
I  must  take  him  by  the  same  road,  full  of  successive  pit- 
falls out  of  which  he  has  to  extricate  himself,  as  when  I  led 
him  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  Rosaceae.  Unless 
I  do  this,  I  cannot  bring  him  to  the  clear  conception  of 
flowering  plants,  which  is  my  object,  —  a  wider  conception 
than  that  of  the  families,  species,  and  varieties  of  the 
flowers  which  I  have  hitherto  shown  him.  Not  to  trouble 
the  reader  with  tedious  repetitions,  I  will  suppose  this 
process  gone  through,  and  will  simply  observe  that,  in  the 
course  of  it,  my  pupil  has  repeated  his  previous  twenty-two 
mistakes,  at  least,  for  each  family  I  make  him  acquainted 
with ;  so  that,  summing  up  all  the  errors  his  mind  passes 
through  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  the  three  families 
of  the  Rosaceae,  the  lilies,  and  the  jessamine,  we  shall  find 
that  thoy  come  to  about  sixty-seven. 

39.  When  further  I  tell  him  that  the  Rosacese,  the  lilies, 
and  the  jessamine  are  all  alike  flowers^  I  correct  three  more 
errors  his  mind  had  fallen  into  in  supposing  in  turn  that  the 
words  "  Rosaceae,"  "  lilies,"  "  jessamine,"  signified  the 
largest  class  or  genera,  while  now  he  finds  that  they  signify 
classes  subordinate  to  the  genus  or  class  of  flowers^  which 
leads  his  mind  to  attend  to  the  signs  coramon  to  the  three 
families  known  to  him,  which  before  he  had  not  perceived. 


ERRORS   INDUCED  —  CONTINUED.  25 

40.  My  pupil  having  arrived  at  this  degree  of  knowledge, 
I  take  him  into  the  kitchen-garden  and  show  liim  a  line 
peach-tree  crimson  with  ripe  peaches.  If  I  ask  him  its 
name,  he  will  tell  me  it  is  a  flower^  for  he  knows  no  other 
class  under  which  he  could  place  it.  "No,"  I  reply,  "it  is 
not  a  flower,  but  a  fruity''  and  so  oblige  him  to  correct  the 
meaning  he  attaches  to  words  for  the  seventy-first  time,  by 
making  him  understand  that  the  class  of  flowers  does  not 
include  all  he  sees  in  the  garden.  And  yet  he  is  still  far 
from  understanding  the  meaning  of  fruit  as  used  in  ordinary 
parlance,  since  it  is  used  to  signify  neither  an  individual 
nor  a  variety,  nor  a  smaller  or  larger  class,  but  a  class 
suflficiently  extensive  to  include  under  it  other  classes  of 
varying  extent.  I  must,  therefore,  make  him  understand 
that  there  are  many  kinds  of  fruit,  such  as  those  formed 
around  a  hard  stone  ;  others  hanging  in  clusters,  like  grapes 
or  berries  ;  others  like  seeds ;  others  that  grow  in  ears,  as 
wheat  or  Indian  corn ;  others  that  are  altogether  pulpy, 
and  so  on :  further,  that  the  fruit  he  is  looking  at  is  a  stone- 
fruit,  but  that  it  is  only  one  of  many  species  called  peach 
or  cherry  or  olive,  etc.  ;  that  this  one  is  a  peach,  but  that 
there  are  several  sorts  of  peaches,  such  as  the  hard-fleshed 
and  the  soft-fleshed,  etc.  ;  and  that  the  one  in  question  is 
hard-fleshed,  but  that  there  are  several  other  similar  sorts. 
Now,  to  teach  him  all  this  in  inverse  order, — ^.  e.  begin- 
ning with  the  individual  peach  he  sees,  and  taking  him  from 
the  particular  sort  of  peach  to  peaches  in  general,  then  to 
stone-fruits,  and  then  to  fruits  in  general,  it  is  evident  that 
I  must  lead  his  mind  to  form  seventy-one  more  erroneous 
conceptions  in  the  first  instance,  which,  afterwards,  I  shall 
have  to  make  him,  an  equal  number  of  times,  change  and 
rectify. 

41.  Finally,  having  thus  brought  him  to  know  fruit  as 
a  large  class  of  the  objects  he  sees  in  the  garden,  distinct 


26  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

from  that  other  large  class  of  flowers  which  he  first  learnt 
to  know,  I  may  take  him  on  to  the  conception  of  plants 
in  general,  leading  him  to  place  under  this  new  and  larger 
classification  both  flowering  and  fruit-bearing  plants  as 
subordinate  classes ;  and  this  he  will  do,  on  condition, 
however,  of  again  correcting  the  meaning  he  had  attached 
to  the  two  words  flowering  plant  and  fruit-hearing  plant, 
restricting  them,  from  their  first  signification  in  his  mind 
as  complete  and  independent  classes  before  he  knew  that 
of  plants  in  general,  to  that  of  subordinate  classes  of  the 
latter. 

42.  Such  is  the  lengthy  road  by  which  the  child  arrives 
at  some  clear  conception  of  the  words  plant  and  vegetable. 
Is  this  the  right  method?  Is  this  the  easiest  and  quickest 
road  to  knowledge  ?  To  answer  this  question,  we  must  com- 
pare the  method  followed  with  the  other  and  inverse  one,  — 
that  which  leads  from  the  general  to  the  less  general ;  but 
first,  I  must  make  two  observations,  to  justify  and  explain 
what  I  have  hitherto  said. 

43.  The  first  is  that,  in  the  case  I  have  supposed  of  the 
child  taking  the  first  class  he  learns  to  distinguish  as  the 
most  extensive,  and  then  finding  out  his  mistake  by  learn- 
ing that  there  are  still  wider  classes  of  things,  is  not  a 
fanciful  one,  but  a  fact  which  I  have  learnt  from  experi- 
ments made  with  children,  whose  intellectual  development 
always  begins  with  learning  the  two  extremities  of  human 
knowledge, — i.  e.  the  individual  by  perception,  and  then  the 
most  universal,  the  class,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  of  things, 
of  existences.  From  this  universal  class  of  things  in  gen- 
eral they  come  down  to  the  conception  of  smaller  classes, 
although  always  inclined  to  make  each  as  large  as  possible, 
and  only  gradually  arriving  at  the  smallest.^ 

1  See  the  observations  I  have  made  on  a  little  girl,  two  years  and  a  half  old,  in 
the  "  Einnovamento  della  Filosojia"  B.  II.  CXXXI. 


COMPARISON   OF   METHODS.  27 

44.  My  second  observation  is  this,  that  all  the  errors, 
which  I  have  shown  the  child's  mind  to  pass  through,  have 
their  principal  source  in  the  meaning  he  attaches  to  the 
words  he  hears ;  and,  for  this  reason,  that  it  is  by  the  use 
of  words  that  he  classifies  the  objects  he  sees,  the  word 
being  the  sign  associated  in  his  mind  with  certain  common 
properties  which  are  the  foundation  of  his  classification.^ 

45.  Coming  now  to  the  comparison  of  the  two  methods, 
let  us  first  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  a  fact  of  experience 
admitted  by  philosophers,  even  of  the  most  opposite  schools, 
that  the  human  being  is  more  inclined  to  observe  the  resem- 
blances of  things  than  their  differences ;  that  he  discovers 
the  former  before  the  latter ;  ^  and  that  the  child  proceeds, 
from  believing  things  to  be  alike,  to  observe  later  how  far 
they  are  unlike.  I  have  explained  this  indisputable  fact 
in  my  writings  on  Idealogy.^ 

46.  This  being  established,  it  follows  that  the  method 
most  in  conformity  with  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  and 
the  spontaneous  action  of  infant  intelligence,  is  that  which 
leads  it  by  the  way  of  resemblances  and  not  of  differ- 
ences, —  which  begins  by  calling  the  attention  of  the  child, 
through  the  use  of  names  to  the  more  general  resemblances 
of  things,  leading  him  later  on  to  note  the  less  general ;  in 
other  words,  bringing  him  by  degrees  to  limit  these  more 
general  resemblances  by  the  differences  he  is  made  to  per- 
ceive %i  things  which  yet  have  this  general  likeness. 

47.  Now,  the  method  which  leads  the  child  from  the  gen- 

1  These  common  properties,  considered  apart  from  each  individual  and  as  the 
j^ound  of  classification,  are  so  many  abstractions  made  by  the  mind  in  using 
words.  We  have  elsewhere  demonstrated  that  the  mind  would  never  arrive  at 
making  these  abstractions  but  for  the  impulse  given  to  it  by  language.  See 
"New  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  Ideas,  Nos.  514  sqq. 

2  "Young  children  find  relations  of  similarity  in  the  most  dissimilar  things;  all 
children  are  coachmen,  their  sticks  are  horses,  the  chairs  coaches."— Taverna, 
Novelle  Morali  (Moral  Tales),  Preliminary  Discourse. 

3  See  the  two  chapters  XXXII.  and  XXXIII.  of  B.  II.  of  the  work  entitled 
Biniiovamento  della  Filosojia  in  Italia  (Revival  of  Fhilosophy  in  Italy). 


28  ON   THE   KULIKG  PRINCIPLE   OF  METHOD. 

eral  to  the  particular  is  precisely  that  which  draws  his 
attention  first  to  the  widest  resemblances,  and  afterwards 
to  the  differences  as  limits  of  these  same  resemblances ; ' 
w^hereas  the  method  which  leads  the  child  from  the  particu- 
lar to  the  general  does  exactly  the  reverse,  —  i.  e.  leads  him 
to  consider  first  the  widest  differences  and  afterwards  the 
lesser  differences,  introducing  the  resemblances  as  limits  to 
the  differences. 

48.  Hence  the  former  is  manifestly  the  method  which 
follows  nature,  and  the  latter  that  which  opposes  and  con- 
tradicts it. 

And,  in  fact,  if  I  teach  the  child  that  all  the  individuals 
he  sees  in  the  garden  are  called  plants,  and  he  hears  me 
repeat  the  name  plant  at  every  successive  individual  I  point 
out  to  him,  he  will,  with  the  greatest  ease,  arrive  at  that 
degree  of  classification ;  for  it  demands  from  him  no  atten- 
tion to  particular  differences,  but  only  that  he  should  form 
in  his  mind  the  general  image  of  one  of  the  individuals 
shown  to  him.  This  he  does  by  putting  together  in  the 
rough,  as  it  were,  the  appearances  common  to  all  plants, 
and,  having  this  picture  in  his  mind  in  broad  outline,  it  only 
remains  for  him  to  correct  and  fill  it  in  in  various  ways, 
wjiich  he  does  by  successive  degrees. 

49.  Hence,  when  I  go  on  to  show  him  the  difference 
between  the  plants  which  are  merely  for  pleasure  and 
ornament,  the  flowers  and  the  fruit-bearing  plants,  hf  has 
only  to  take  up  his  mental  sketch  and  to  give  it  two  more 
touches,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  by  which  he  brings  out  the 
type  or  conception  of  flowering  plants  on  the  one  hand,  and 
that  of  fruit-bearing  plants  on  the  other.  In  doing  this  he 
is  not  called  upon  to  correct  his  first  outline  as  erroneous, 
for  it  remains  permanently  true  and  useful  to  him  as  knowl- 
edge of  plants  in  general.  He  has  only  to  add  to  it  the 
more  finished  designs  of   special   flowering  or  fruit-bearing 


ORDER   IN   LOCAL   CLASSIFICATION.  29 

plants.  The  same  holds  good  for  all  the  further  classifica- 
tions the  child's  mind  forms  by  this  method,  down  to  the 
more  special  ones  of  rosaceous  plants,  and  those  of  different 
kinds  of  fruit,  and,  among  the  Rosaceae,  those  that  bear 
China  roses ;  and  among  the  peaches,  those  that  are  hard- 
fleshed  ;  and  so  on  to  the  Adelaide  of  Como  rose,  and  to 
special  varieties  of  peaches,  etc.  Throughout  this  series  of 
efforts,  the  child  is  continually  forming  more  and  more  dis- 
tinct conceptions  without  committing  a  single  error  regard- 
ing the  extent  of  the  class,  or  the  meaning  of  the  terms  he 
has  learnt  to  use.  All  the  conceptions  he  has  successively 
formed  are  accurate ;  and  the  work  done  need  neither  be 
altered  nor  undone,  but  is  well  graduated  and  put  together 
and  ready  for  future  use.^ 

50.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  true  and  natural  method, 
by  which  children  should  be  taught  the  classification  of 
things,  is  that  which  begins  by  showing  and  naming  to  them 
the  most  general  class,  and  the  various  individuals  belonging 
to  it ;  and  thence,  little  by  little,  goes  on  to  smaller  and 
smaller  classes  and  to  the  individuals  falling  under  them, 
until  we  reach  the  smallest  of  all,  that  which  I  have  termed 
the  full  species, "^ 

CHAPTER    V. 

CONTINUATION.  —  ORDER  IN  WHICH  OBJECTS  PRESENT  THEM- 
SELVES TO  THE  HUMAN  MIND  IN  THE  LOCAX  DISTRIBUTION 
OF    THINGS. 

51.  We  have  now  arrived  at  a  knowledge  of  the  steps 
by  which  the  human  mind  proceeds  in  the  classification  of 
objects  ;  but  what  we  are  seeking  is  something  more  uni- 

1  See  Paradiso,  canto  xxix.  vv.  130-132. 

"This  nature  so  doth  graduate  itself 
In  numbers,  that  there  never  hath  been  speech 
Nor  mortal  concept  that  can  go  so  far." 

2  It  is  of  importance  to  bear  in  mind  liere  what  I  have  said  in  the  "  New  Essay," 
Nos.  C47  sqq.,  relating  to  species  and  genera. 


80  ON   THE   EULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

versal  than  this.  We  want  not  only  to  know  how  the  mind 
succeeds  in  classifying  the  objects  of  its  knowledge,  but  the 
general  law  of  its  graduated  action  in  every  form  of  thought, 
so  as  to  obtain  from  it  a  general  rule  to  guide  us  in  leading 
the  child  to  knowledge. 

52.  What  we  have  already  said  about  classification  pre- 
pares the  way  for  us,  however,  to  find  the  general  order 
followed  by  the  mind  in  other  operations.  There  is  no 
surer  way  to  this  than  observation  of  its  processes  as  re- 
gards the  particular  things  about  which  it  is  active,  and  the 
reduction  of  them  afterwards  to  a  general  formula.  Let  us 
then  return  again  for  a  little  while  to  the  careful  observation 
of  what  passes  in  the  child's  mind. 

We  have  seen  that  the  action  of  the  mind  in  classification 
consists  in  finding  the  relations  of  resemblance  and  diifer- 
ence  existing  between  things.  Let  us  now  examine  how  the 
infant  mind  discovers  other  relations;  those,  for  example, 
of  respective  localities. 

53.  Our  pupil,  whom  we  will  call  Felix,  has  already  been 
shown  all  the  plants  in  the  garden,  and  has  been  taught 
how  to  classify  them  according  to  the  above  method,  so 
that  he  can  distinguish  each  tree,  each  shrub,  each  herb, 
each  flower,  and  give  to  them  without  difficulty  their  more 
or  less  general,  or  more  or  less  specific,  names. 

But  the  garden  where  he  has  learned  all  this  is  ill- 
arranged  ;  the  families  and  genera  of  plants  are  all  mixed 
up  together.  Felix  would  like  to  have  his  garden  divided 
into  three  separate  plots, — one  for  the  ornamental  plants, 
one  for  the  fruit  and  vegetables,  and  one  for  the  medicinal 
plants ;  and  that  in  each  division  the  sub-divisions,  proper 
to  the  plants  themselves,  should  be  observed.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  one  day  he  mentions  this  wish  to  his  teacher, 
and  that  the  latter,  pleased  with  his  pupil's  thought,  should 
obtain  as  a  reward  from  the  father  of  the  child  a  small  piece 


CONDITION   O^  LOCAL   CLASSIFICATION.  31 

of  ground  where  the  latter  can  make  a  garden  after  his  own 
devices. 

54.  What  was  the  necessary  condition  of  such  a  thought 
entering  the  child's  mind  as  that  of  arranging  a  garden 
according  to  the  classification  of  plants  which  he  has  learnt? 
Clearly  that  he  should  first  have  learnt  the  classification, 
just  as  the  condition  of  his  learning  the  classification  was 
that  he  should  first  learn  to  know  the  individuals  to  be 
classified.  Here  we  see  that  a  certain  thought  is  the  neces- 
sary condition  of  another  thought,  which  follows  the  first 
and  cannot  precede  it.  In  the  case  we  are  considering,  the 
thought  of  the  individuals  preceded  that  of  the  resem- 
blances between  them ;  the  thought  of  the  resemblances 
preceded  that  of  classes  ;  the  thought  of  the  classes  pre- 
ceded that  of  the  local  arrangement-  of  the  objects  classi- 
fied. This  order  in  the  objects  of  thought  is  necessary, 
and  is  followed  by  all  minds  alike,  whatever  their  degree  ^ 
of  intelligence. 

55.  How  then  could  we  teach  a  child  the  propriety  of 
a  certain  local  distribution  of  objects  according  to  their 
classes,  if  we  had  not  first  taught  him  to  know  the  classes 
themselves?  These  once  known,  the  thought  of  their  local 
distribution  comes  spontaneously  into  his  mind,  and  he 
understands  it  as  soon  as  it  is  proposed  to  him.  Here  we 
have  the  order  of  thought  respecting  the  local  distribution 
of  objects,  and  at  the  same  time  a  rule  of  method  in  teach- 
ing suggested  by  Nature  herself,  —  first,  show  the  child  the 
basis,  the  reason  for  a  given  distribution  of  objects,  and 
he  will  immediately,  with  scarcely  any  assistance,  under- 
stand the  distribution.  The  thought  of  it  will  occur  to 
him  spontaneously ;  he  will  feel  its  propriety  and  see  how 
it  can  be  effected. 

56.  Again,  let  us  suppose  that  Felix  has  set  to  work  to 
make   his   garden  after   his  own   fashion,  and   arranged  it 


32  ON   THE   RULING  PKINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

according  to  the  classification  of  plants  which  he  has  learnt. 
When  he  has  nearly  finished  it,  he  finds  out  that  he  has 
allotted  too  much  space  to  the  divisions  of  medicinal  and 
flowering  plants,  and  left  too  little  for  the  fruit  and  vegeta- 
bles, which  brings  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  ground 
should  be  divided  in  more  exact  proportion  to  the  number 
and  size  of  the  plants  of  each  kind.  This  is  a  new  reflec- 
tion, a  new  cognition  he  has  arrived  at  by  experience. 

57.  Was  it  possible  for  him  to  arrive  at  it  sooner?  Cer- 
tainly there  would  be  no  absurdity  in  supposing  that,  before 
transporting  the  plants  into  his  garden,  he  had  considered 
that  he  must  divide  the  ground  according  to  their  number 
and  size.  But,  even  if  he  had  taken  all  this  into  considera- 
tion before  setting  to  work,  and  before  he  had  learnt  the 
necessity  of  it  from  experience,  still  it  would  remain  true 
that  the  order  in  which  the  thoughts  occurred  to  his  mind 
was  and  must  be  the  following  :  — 

(1)  The  reflection,  as  yet  only  general,  that  the  plants 
must  be  placed  in  different  plots  of  ground  according  to  the 
classes  to  which  they  belong. 

(2)  The  reflection  on  the  mode  of  distributing  the  plants 
properly  according  to  their  classes. 

58.  Here  we  find  the  law  pointed  out  in  the  last  chapter, 
^.  e.  that  the  mind  first  conceives  the  general  and  then  the 
particular,  — first  the  thought  blocked  out,  as  it  were,  in  the 
rough,  then  in  definite  outline,  then  finished  and  perfected ; 
first  the  necessity  for  a  division,  then  the  form  to  be  given 
to  it. 

59.  As  regards  this  mode  or  form,  a  multitude  of  reflec- 
tions will  be  successively  awakened  in  the  child's  mind  by 
experience,  which  no  foresight,  however  keen,  could  have 
supplied,  teaching  him  now  the  necessity  of  so  arranging 
the  plants  that  the  taller  and  more  leafy  shall  not  over- 
shadow the  smaller  and  slighter ;    now,  that  certain  plants 


LOCAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF   OBJECTS.  33 

require  more  shelter  than  others  from  cold  or  wind,  from 
damp  or  drought ;  that  certain  others  must  be  put  into  poor, 
others  into  rich,  others  into  sandy  soil ;  others  again  into 
stiff  soil,  or  in  woody  or  marshy  situations.  He  further 
learns  that  plants  have  their  seasons,  so  that  his  plots 
remain  at  times  bare,  and  shorn  of  their  beauty ;  and  that, 
as  he  cannot  have  all  the  plants  in  every  season,  he  had  bet- 
ter replace  spring  by  summer  plants,  and  these  by  autumnal 
ones.  Thus  by  slow  degrees,  and  by  the  continual  suc- 
cession of  new  thoughts,  he  learns  that  the  proper  distribu- 
tion of  plants  in  his  little  garden  is  by  no  means  such  an 
easy  thing  as  he  imagined  at  first,  but  is,  instead,  a  slowly 
acquired  art,  requiring  a  long  apprenticeship  of  labor,  experi- 
ment, and  thought. 

60.  Who  does  not  see  that  this  progress  in  his  mind  is 
made  by  successive  degrees ;  that  his  reflections  follow  a 
certain  order,  connecting  each  with  each,  the  one  being 
derived  from  the  other,  so  that  the  latter  could  not  exist 
unless  the  former  had  preceded  it?  It  is  true  that  the 
teacher,  enriched  by  his  own  experience,  can  communicate 
what  he  knows  to  his  pupil ;  but  the  teacher  himself  wdll,,  if 
he  is  wise,  make  himself  the  interpreter  and  disciple  of 
Nature^  and  lead  the  child's  mind  to  the  knowledge  of  truth 
by  the  same  gradual  steps  he  would  have  to  follow  in  gain- 
ing the  knowledge  for  himself  by  the  much  longer  road  of 
experience. 

61.  Let  us  examine  another  progress  made  by  the  mind 
with  regard  to  the  local  distribution  of  objects. 

One  fine  morning,  Felix,  going  as  usual  into  his  garden 
and  finding  it  carpeted  w^ith  lovely  flowers  of  every  kind, 
thinks  he  will  gather  some,  and  tie  them  up  into  a  nosegay 
for  his  mother.  From  that  time,  he  takes  to  her  every  morn- 
ing his  pretty  gifts.  He  finds  out  for  himself  how  to  weave 
his  flowers  into  garlands,  and  he  soon  perceives  that  some 


34  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE    ©F   METHOD. 

forms  and  colors  go  better  together  than  others.  As  he 
takes  great  deUght  in  this  way  of  arranging  his  flowers 
according  to  their  qualities,  he  soon  learns  how  to  make 
graceful  and  beautiful  nosegays  and  garlands. 

^2.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  his  mind  follows  in  this  progress 
a  certain  necessary  course.  For,  in  the  first  place,  he  could 
not  reflect  on  the  beauty  of  flowers  unless  the  flowers  were 
already  known  to  him;  second,  he  could  not  think  of  tying 
them  up  into  a  nosegay  unless  he  already  knew  not  only 
one,  but  many  flowers  ;  third,  he  could  not  think  that  they 
would  give  pleasure  to  his  mother  unless  he  had  first  thought 
of  the  beauty  of  the  flowers,  of  his  mother,  and  of  giving 
her  pleasure ;  fourth,  he  could  not  think  of  the  beauty  of 
wreaths  of  flowers,  involving  a  more  complicated  operation, 
unless  he  had  at  first  gone  through  the  simple  operation  of 
tying  them  together  in  a  nosegay ;  fifth,  he  could  not  think 
of  arranging  them  so  as  to  produce  a  more  pleasing  effect 
without  having  first  observed  that  harmony  of  color  and 
form  produced  such  an  effect ;  sixth,  he  could  not  arrive 
at  producing  the  most  beautiful  arrangement  without  first 
making  many  trials,  mixing  and  weaving  them  together  in 
various  ways. 

CHAPTEE    YI. 

ON    THE    NATURAL    ORDER    IN    WHICH    OBJECTS    ARE    PRESENTED 
TO    THE    MIND    IN    ABSTRACT    REASONING. 

63.  The  attempt  to  make  the  mind  proceed  by  any  other 
course  than  that  indicated  above  would  do  it  violence, 
and,  far  from  assisting  its  development,  would  oppose  and 
retard  it. 

64.  Another  example  will  make  clearer  still  the  truth  we 
want  to  establish, — i.  e.  that  the  human  mind  follows  in  its 
development  a  method  prescribed  by  Nature,  and  that  it 
must  proceed  by  that  method  and  no  other ;  for,  even,  if  the 


METHOD*  PRESCRIBED   BY   NATURE.  35 

inexperienced  teacher  should  fancy  he  had  succeeded  in 
carrying  on  his  pupil's  mind  by  some  road  not  natural  to  it, 
he  would  simply  be  misled  by  the  fact  that  the  child  often 
undoes,  by  his  own  mental  effort,  the  work  presented  to  him 
by  his  teacher,  and,  as  a  rule,  disentangles  and  rearranges 
for  himself  the  confused  mass  of  matter  thrust  into  his 
memory,  though  at  the  cost  of  infinite  trouble  and  annoy- 
ance. The  labor  thus  imposed  on  children  by  teaching  them 
things  in  the  wrong  order,  which  they  have  to  set  right  for 
themselves  before  they  can  understand  what  is  taught,  not 
only  makes  their  learning  very  slow,  but  also  very  arduous 
and  wearisome,  as  being  opposed  to  the  natural  laws  of  their 
intelligence. 

65.  Who  is  so  ignorant  of  logic  as  not  to  know  that 
a  process  of  reasoning  is  a  series  of  propositions  express- 
ing so  many  judgments,  so  many  thoughts,  so  many  cogni- 
tions, depending  the  one  upon  the  other,  as  consequences 
from  their  principles?  It  follows  that  the  mind  cannot 
arrive  at  a  given  proposition  without  having  first  passed 
through  all  the  preceding  propositions  of  which  it  is  the 
consequence. 

Take  any  theorem  of  Euclid,  and  you  will  find  that  its 
demonstration  is  reached  by  constant  reference  to  preceding 
theorems  which  contain  within  them,  as  it  were,  the  theorem 
that  has  to  be  demonstrated.  Could  the  mind  comprehend 
the  ultimate  theorem  if  it  jumped  over  all  the  antecedent 
ones?     The  impossibility  of  this  is  evident. 

66.  And  here  I  would  point  out  the  reason  why  the 
method  of  mathematicians  is  accepted  as  the  best.  The 
excellence  of  this  method  consists  solely  in  the  right  order 
in  which  the  various  propositions  of  which  geometry  con- 
sists are  arranged ;  and  why  should  not  the  same  rigorous 
order  be  observed  in  education  as  in  any  other  science,  or 
rather  ought  it  not  to  be  so  observed? 


36  ON   THE   EULING   PIUNOIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

Let  us  now  seek  the  reason  why  mathematicians  all 
observe  this  rigorous  method  required  by  the  nature  of  the 
understanding,  while  the  followers  of  other  sciences  neglect 
it,  and  in  so  far  depart  from  the  true  and  natural  procedure 
of  the  intellect. 

67.  In  mathematics,  the  mind  is  constrained  to  deduce 
one  thing  from  another,  which  would  be  impossible  unless  it 
began  with  the  premises  and  deduced  each  proposition  from 
the  preceding  one.  Otherwise  it  would  soon  perceive  that 
it  was  really  doing  nothing  and  understanding  nothing,  and 
would  refuse  to  go  on  blindly  groping  in  the  dark.  In  other 
branches  of  knowledge,  on  the  contrary,  the  mind  fancies 
that  it  understands  where  it  does  not,  and  adopts  the  first 
proposition  advanced,  attaching  to  it  some  meaning  of  its 
own,  and  storing  it  away  in  the  memory  as  an  acquired  fact ; 
and  so  on  with  all  others.  It  is  deceived  as  to  the  fact  both 
by  memory  and  language,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  the 
child  taught  the  classification  of  plants  by  passing  from  the 
lower  to  the  higher,  and  at  each  step  believing  that  he  had 
learnt  the  name  denoting  a  class,  to  find  that  he  had  made 
a  mistake  which  had  to  be  corrected.  He  does  correct  it, 
it  is  true,  but  at  what  a  cost  of  wasted  time  !  Nor  does  the 
correction  always  follow  so  quickly.  More  often  it  happens 
that  a  man  advanced  in  life  finds  accumulated  in  his  memory, 
without  order  or  connection,  a  number  of  propositions  which 
he  learnt  in  youth,  and  which,  though  devoid  of  any  living 
meaning  to  him,  are  associated  in  his  mind  with  words,  to 
each  of  which  he  gives  a  certain  value.  If,  by  chance,  his 
memory  of  them  is  revived,  he  begins  to  perceive  their  con- 
nection, and  how  the  one  explains  the  other,  and  thus  to 
understand  them,  because  he  has  himself  arranged  them  in 
then-  natural  order.  He  does  this  little  by  little  as  years 
go  on,  and  this  is  the  principal  reason  why  intelligence  and 
love  of  knowledge  come  only  in  later  years.     The  method  of 


>        ERKONEOUS  METHOD  PUKSUED.  37 

education  hitherto  pursued  aims  only  at  cramming  the  child's 
memory  with  an  immense  burden  of  unintelligible  words. 
The  poor  little  brain  is  every  day  stamped  and  written  over 
with  mysterious  signs  and  figures,  not  one  of  which  can  be 
understood  till  the  whole  has  been  gone  through,  seeing  that 
the  proposition,  which  is  the  key  to  all  the  rest  and  to  itself, 
comes  last  instead  of  first  of  all,  as  it  should  do.  Nothing 
of  this  kind  can  happen  in  mathematics,  which  never  teach 
a  proposition  without  giving  its  reason  and  demonstrat- 
ing it. 

The  teacher  who  should  make  it  a  rule  to  give  his  pupils 
in  every  case  the  demonstration  of  what  he  tells  them  would 
find  himself  obliged,  like  the  mathematician,  to  follow  a 
strict  order  in  the  arrangement  of  his  matter,  and  to  proceed 
by  an  equally  rigorous  method. 

CHAPTER    yil. 

RECAPITULATION. 

68.  It  is  time  that  we  should  sum  up  what  we  have  said 
about  the  natural  order  of  mental  processes  and  their  ob- 
jects. 

69.  We  have  noted  three  kinds  of  objects  about  which 
the  mind  is  occupied,  and  three  modes  of  its  action  in  re- 
spect to  them  ;  —  the  classification  of 'objects  by  their  resem- 
blances ;  their  distribution  in  a  certain  local  order ;  finally, 
abstract  reasoning. 

70.  In  the  first  of  these  modes  we  have  seen  that,  if  the 
mind  does  not  proceed  by  its  natural  method,  it  indeed 
gains  something,  but  at  the  cost  of  continual  mistakes 
which  it  has  continually  to  correct. 

71.  In  the  second,  if  the  mind,  limited  as  it  is,  be  forced 
on  against  its  natural  method,  it  acquires  spmething,  but 
that  something  is  confused  and  inaccurate ;  its  ideas  become 


38  ON    THE    KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

involved,  and  fail  to  attain  any  solid  convictions  as  the  basis 
of  steady  action. 

72.  Finally,  in  the  third,  the  mind  cannot  depart  wholly 
from  its  natural  order  of  progress,  and  any  attempt  to  force 
it  would  be  useless  ;  the  result  being  simply  that  it  would 
come  altogether  to  a  stand-still,  and  could  learn  nothing 
at  all. 

73.  These  are  precisely  the  three  principal  evils  which 
follow  from  teaching  the  young  without  observing  the  true 
method  which  preserves  the  progressive  order  of  ideas,  and 
of  which  we  are  seeking  the  principles  :  first,  the  mind  is 
led  into  error ;  secondly,  its  ideas  are  dim  and  confused ; 
thirdly,  it  is  brought  to  a  stand,  and  all  but  stupefied. 

CHAPTER    YIII. 

NATURAL  AND  NECESSARY  ORDER  OF  INTELLECTUAL  ACTION. 

74.  Now,  if  we  consider  attentively  in  what  consists  the 
natural  and  necessary  order  of  the  mental  objects  noticed 
in  the  three  cases  above  analyzed,  we  can  without  difficulty 
pronounce  it  to  be  the  following  :  — 

75.  "A  thought  is  that  which  becomes  the  matter^  or 
provides  the  matter  of  another  thought." 

That  is  the  law.  It  is  evident  that,  if  a  thought  becomes 
itself  the  matter,  or  pfovides  the  matter  of  another  thought, 
this  second  thought  cannot  possibly  arise  until  the  first  has 
arisen  and  provided  the  matter  needed  for  it. 

Hence  the  natural  and  necessary  order  of  all  human 
thoughts  is  made  manifest. 

76.  The  whole  sum  of  thoughts  which  have  or  can  occur 
to  the  human  mind  may  be  distributed  and  classified  in 
divers  orders,  as  follows  :  — 

First  order  of  thoughts  :  thoughts  whose  matter  is  not 
taken  from  antecedent  thoughts. 


NATURAL  ORDER  OF  THOUGHT.  39 

Second  order  of  thoughts  :  thouglits  which  take  their 
matter  from  thoughts  of  tlie  first  order,  and  from  those  only. 

Third  order  of  thoughts  :  thoughts  which  take  their 
matter  from  thoughts  of  the  second  order. 

Fourth  order  of  thoughts  :  thoughts  that  take  their 
matter  from  thoughts  of  the  third  order. 

Fifth  order  of  thoughts,  etc.  Every  other  order  may 
be  successively  enumerated,  each  being  characterized  by  its 
matter  being  taken  from  the  order  immediately  preceding  it. 

There  is  no  end  to  this  series  of  orders :  hence  the  infi- 
nite development  for  which  the  human  mind  is  organized 
towards  a  term  it  can  never  reach. 

77.  Now  that  this  order  followed  by  the  huinan  mind 
in  every  act  of  the  intellect  is  a  natural  one  is  self-evident ; 
for  the  nature  of  the  mind  is  such  that  it  can  arrive  at 
a  cognition  only  when  the  matter,  the  object  of  it,  has  been 
antecedently  given. 

78.  Reason  itself  shows  that  this  order  is  necessary  and 
immutable ;  since  it  is  impossible  for  any  mind  to  think 
or  understand  without  a  something,  an  object,  to  think  of 
and  understand. 

CHAPTER    IX. 

RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

79.  Having  thus  discovered  the  immutable  order  of 
human  cognitions,  we  have  reached  at  the  same  time  the 
solid  foundation  on  which  we  can  construct  the  method 
of  teaching.  This  method  is  natural  and  invariable  as  is 
the  foundation  on  which  it  rests,  —  i.  e.  the  law  above 
explained  which  governs  the  human  understanding.  It  is 
perfectly  clear  and  definite,  and  it  is  the  only  method ;  for 
all  the  good  methods  hitherto  invented  can  be  reduced 
to  it ;  they  are  but  partial  glimpses  of  it,  or  means  of 
arriving  at  it,  and  all  methods  opposed  to  it  are  bad. 


40  ON    THE    KULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

80.  The  formula,  then,  which  expresses  the  method  of 
teaching  in  general,  and  the  ruling  principle  of  Method, 
is  the  following  :  — 

"Present  to  the  mind  of  the  child  (and  this  applies 
to  man  in  general) ,  first,  the  objects  which  belong  to  the  first 
order  of  cognitions  ;^  then  those  which  belong  to  the  second 
order ;  then  those  which  belong  to  the  third,  and  so  on  suc- 
cessively," taking  care  never  to  lead  the  child  to  a  cognition 
of  the  second  order  without  having  ascertained  that  his 
mind  has  grasped  those  of  the  first  order  relative  to  it, 
and  the  same  with  regard  to  cognitions  of  the  third,  fourth, 
and  other  higher  orders. 

1  The  word  in  the  original  is  intellezloni,  which  seems  to  me  better  expressed 
by  cognitions  than  by  anglicizing  the  word  into  intellections,  which  would  require 
au  explanation,  or  paraphrasing  it  by  acts  of  the  wider  standing. 


BOOK    II. 

ON    THE    APPLICATION    TO    LITTLE    CHILDREN    OF 
THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

SECTION     I. 

ON    THE    NECESSITY    OF    CLASSIFYING   THE    COGNITIONS 
OF  THE  HUMAN   MIND  ACCORDING  TO  THEIR  ORDER. 

81.  From  what  has  been  hitherto  said,  we  are  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  first  step  towards  adopting  the  true 
method  of  nature  in  the  teaching  of  the  young,  whether  pri- 
vate or  public,  is  to  make  an  exact  classification  of  all  the 
cognitions  of  the  human  mind  according  to  their  respective 
natural  orders,  as  laid  down  above.  This  has  never  yet  been 
done  nor  even  thought  of,  the  necessity  of  it  not  having 
been  perceived. 

82.  Nevertheless,  it  is  precisely  what  the  ablest  educat- 
ors have  sought  after,  and  have  partially  attained  without 
themselves  being  conscious  of  it,  and  what  experience  has 
revealed  in  individual  cases,  without,  however,  its  universal 
validity  having  been  felt.-^ 

I  shall  exemplify  it  by  instances  taken  from  the  simplesv 
things,  seeing  that  the  principle  we  have  laid  down  should 

1  "  On  cominence  k  sentirque  pour  assurer  les  progres  de  I'education  il  faudrait 
decouvriT  la  methode  psychologique,  ou  en  d'autres  termes,  decouvrir  les  lois  du 
developpement  moral  de  I'individu.  Mais  sans  pretendre  connaitre  encore  la 
nature  intime  de  I'ame,  ou  pent  s'attacher  k  suivre  la  marche  des  progres  intel- 
lectuels  dfes  la  naissance.  Et  comnie  la  connaissance  du  monde  physique  et  moral 
ne  pent  parvenir  que  successivement  et  dans  un  ordre  determine  a  un  etre  plonge 
dans  une  entifere  ignorance,  on  s'aperyoit  bientot,  que  cet  ordre  decide  du  reveil 
des  facultes  diverses  da«B  I'ame  de  renlant." — Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure, 
L'Edtwation  Progressive,  Tom.  I.,  Preface. 

41 


42  ON    THE    KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

guide  the  teacher  in  every  word  he  utters  ;  and  whenever 
he  departs  from  it,  were  it  only  in  a  single  sentence,  he 
commits  an  error  against  right  method. 

83.  The  first  author  in  Italy  who  wrote  good  reading- 
books  for  little  children^  wrote  in  detached  sentences, 
mostly  leaving  out  the  conjunctions.  I  will  give  the  reason 
for  this  omission  in  his  own  words  :  ' '  What  is  first  learnt  is 
to  discern  things  themselves,  and  next  to  distinguish  their 
parts.  Not  till  later  on  do  we  group  them  together,  and 
come  to  understand  their  unity  and  correlation.  This  sec- 
ond degree  of  knowledge  is  precisely  that  which  is  denoted 
by  conjunctions,  the  office  of  which  is  to  bind  together  the 
several  members  of  a  discourse,  its  sentences  and  periods. 
If,  then,  the  children,  having  arrived  at  the  first  degree  of 
knowledge,  that  of  distinguishing  things  from  one  another, 
are  satisfied  with  that,  it  follows  that  they  will  have  neither 
the  inclination  nor  the  aptitude  to  learn  the  use  of  con- 
junctions, until,  at  least,  their  first  eagerness  is  somewhat 
abated." 

84.  The  man  who  wrote  these  words  had  arrived,  by  the 
guidance  of  experience  in  a  particular  case,  at  a  partial 
perception  of  our  principle.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the 
little  child  applies  himself  to  understand  the  meaning  of 
each  sentence,  but  pays  no  attention  to  the  conjunctions 
which  bind  the  sentences  into  a  whole,  so  that  they  are  lost 
to  him  at  his  tender  age.  But  why  does  this  happen? 
The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  our  principle :  the  relations 
between  the  different  parts  of  a  discourse  belong  to  a  higher 
order  of  thought  than  the  simple  sentences  which  compose 

1  Giuseppe  Taverna,  a  priest  of  Piaceiiza,  published  his  first  Reading-Booh  for 
Children  in  Parma,  1808  Many  editions  were  afterwards  published  with  im- 
provements by  the  author.  The  edition  of  1817,  and  later  ones,  contain  the  letter 
of  dedication  to  the  I.  R.  Delegate  of  the  Province  of  Brescia,  Don  Francesco 
Torriceni,  from  which  we  take  the  observation  eouceriiipg  the  omission  of  con- 
junctions. 


ORDER   OF   COGNITIONS.  43 

it,  and  therefore  they  cannot  be  comprehended  by  the  minds 
of  children,  who  have  not  yet  mastered  the  cognitions  ex- 
pressed in  the  simple  sentences.  This  becomes  evident,  if 
we  reflect  that  the  thought  of  a  connection  or  relation  between 
two  things  cannot  arise  until  after  the  perception  of  each  of 
the  individual  things  separately.  The  thought,  then,  of  indi- 
vidual things  is  that  which  provides  the  matter  necessary  to 
the  thought  of  the  relations  of  things,  and  must  therefore 
he  anterior  to  it. 

85.  But  is  there  no  other  order  of  cognitions  which  pre- 
cedes that  of  sentences  in  the  child's  mind?  Yes,  as- 
suredly :  there  is  that  of  simple  conceptions  expressed 
in  single  words.  This  was  revealed  by  experience  to  Vitale 
Rosi,^  and  therefore  he  began  his  excellent  "Manual  for 
Preparatory  Schools,"  with  exercises  intended  to  teach  chil- 
dren the  names  of  things  by  explaining  the  meaning  of  one 
word  at  a  time,  as  the  sign  of  a  thing,  not  as  the  element 
of  a  proposition. 

86.  The  reason  of  the  weariness  of  children,  when  we 
attempt  to  make  them  analyze  propositions,  is  simply  be- 
cause they  are  required,  in  doing  so,  to  accomplish  two 
mental  operations  at  once,  —  two  operations  which  are  in 
their  nature  successive,  and  cannot  be  contemporaneously 
carried  on.  One  of  these  is  the  act  of  understanding  by 
which  the  child  arrives  at  the  meaning  of  single  words  ;  the 
other  is  the  act  by  which  the  child  binds  the  words  together 
so  as  to  bring  out  of  them  the  meaning  of  the  proposition. 
Is  it  not  manifest  that  the  sense  of  the  proposition  as  a 
whole  cannot  be  reached  by  the  human  mind  until  it  has 
gained  the  materials  for  it  from  more  elementary  ideas,  ^ 
those  which  contain  the  meaning  of  the  individual  words  or 
cognitions?      The   cognitions   having   for   their   object   the 

1  M.  Vitale  Rosi,  Principal  of  the  Seminary  of  Spello,  published  the  Manual 
above  quoted,  in  Fuliguo,  1832. 


44  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

meaning  of  simple  words,  taken  one  at  a  time,  must  there- 
fore be  anterior  in  order  to  those  which  aim  at  the  meaning 
of  a  wliole  proposition  :  this  explains  why  the  child  cannot 
perform  the  latter  until  he  has  had  time  enough  to  compass 
the  former. 

87.  The  observation  of  Abbe  Rosi  is  similar  to  that 
which  had  been  made  before  by  the  Abbe  Taverna.  The 
latter  had  observed  that  children  do  not  at  first  understand 
the  value  of  the  conjunctions  which  bind  sentences  together. 
The  former  observed,  in  addition,  that  children  do  not, 
at  first,  understand  the  value  of  the  conjunctions  which 
bind  single  words  together  so  as  to  form  a  sentence.  Both 
observations  are  only  particular  cases  of  one  general  prin- 
ciple. 


COGNITIONS   OF   THE   FIRST   ORDER.  45 


SECTION    II. 

DN    THE    COGNITIONS    OP    THE     FIRST     ORDER    AND    THE 
CORRESPONDING    STAGE    OF    EDUCATION. 

CHAPTER    I. 

WHICH   ARE    THE    COGNITIONS    OF    THE    FIRST    ORDER? 

88.  Although  we  have  no  intention  in  this  treatise  of 
classifying  the  cognitions  of  the  human  mind,  —  a  task  not 

.  to  be  accomplished  either  by  one  book  or  one  man,  but  only 
by  the  labor  of  the  centuries  to  come, — yet  we  must  enter 
into  it  as  far  as  is  necessary  for  the  understanding  of  our 
view,  to  make  its  importance  manifest,  and  also  to  point  out 
the  way  that  must  be  taken  to  carry  it  into  effect.  For  this 
purpose  let  us  inquire  what  are  the  cognitions  which  belong 
to  the  first  order. 

89.  The  general  force  or  energy  by  which  the  mind 
actually  comes  to  know  is  called  attention. 

90.  The  object  of  instruction  is  to  bring  the  young  to 
know,  and  it  may  therefore  be  called  the  art  of  properly 
directing  the  attention  of  the  youthful  mind.  ^ 

91.  There  are  two  principles  of  his  future  knowledge 
which  in  the  mind  of  man  precede  even  the  awakening 
of  attention,  —  the  fundamental  feeling  and  the  intuition 
of  being.  The  works  on  Ideology  I  have  already  pub- 
lished^ are  mostly  devoted  to  proving  the  existence  of  these 
original  principles  in  man,  and  I  shall  not,  therefore,  dwell 
upon  them  now. 

1  See  especially  The  New  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  Ideas  (translated  into  Eng- 
lish), //  Ttinnovamento  della  Filosofia,  and  the  Jntro]wlof/ia.  I  hope  I  may  assume 
that  all  who  have  read  those  works  with  some  attention  will  find  it  impossible  to 
doubt  that  the  two  above-mentioned  i)rinciples  are  essential  constituents  of  the 
human  being. 


46  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

92.  But  the  fundamental  feeling  and  the  intuition  of 
being  in  the  human  mind  do  not  suffice  without  attention,^ 

93.  Nor  do  these  two  congenital  principles  form  the 
object  of  man's  attention  when  it  is  first  excited.  It  turns 
to  the  new  stimuli,  which,  through  pleasure  or  pain, 
violently  alter  the  sentient  condition  of  the  mind.  These 
stimuli  are  the  accidental  sensations. 

94.  The  accidental  sensations  are  real  modifications  of 
the  fundamental  sense,  but  are  not  cognitions  ;  hence  the 
intellectual  development  of  man  cannot  begin  with  sensa- 
tions alone. 

95.  When  man  is  moved  to  apply  his  intellectual  energy 
to  that  which  he  feels,  then  is  the  moment  in  which  begins 
his  development  as  an  intelligent  being.  We  must,  there- 
fore, diligently  examine  the  nature  of  this  first  application 
of  intellectual  energy  to  sensation,  so  as  to  determine  rightly 
the  first  stage  or  order  of  human  cognitions. 

1  In  the  intuition  of  being  there  is  intellectual  activity  ;  but  this  activity, 
which  is  essential  to  the  intelligent  mind,  is  not  that  which  we  call  atte^ition. 
Attention  is  not  a  primary  but  a  secondary  act  ;  it  is  not  essential,  but  accidental 
and  adventitious,  — the  act  by  which  the  mind  concentrates  and  fixes  its  intellectual 
energy  on  a  simple  or  complex  object  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other.  The  intel- 
lectual energy  is  born  of  that  primary  activity  which  has  already  sprung  from  the 
intuition  of  being.    We  think  it  useless  to  repeat  that  there  cannot  be,  properly 

f  leaking,  a  sensitive  attention;  and  therefore  by  "attention"  we  always  mean 
power  belonging  to  the  intellect.  —  See  Neiv  Essay,  No.  73,  74,  78,  and  foil. 
Note  of  the  Translator.  —  For  the  general  English  reader,  it  may  be  useful  to 
give  some  explanation  of  the  terms  fundamental  feeling  and  intuition  of  being, 
and  of  the  author's  use  of  them.  The  fundamental  feeling  is  that  generally  dif- 
fused feeling  of  our  own  bodies  which  constitutes  us  sentient  beings.  Rosmini 
shows  how  from  this  feeling  we  gain  an  assurance  of  the  existence  of  our  own 
bodies,  and  through  them  of  external  bodies,  as  certain  as  the  fact  of  conscious- 
ness (New  Essay,  Nos.  701  and  foil.).  The  intuition  of  being  is  the  innate  assurance 
that  something  is.  He  also  shows  that  all  our  concepts  and  ideas  are  judgments 
by  which  we  affirm  that  so  and  so  is  so  and  so;  and,  as  in  every  judgment  there 
must  be  a  subject  and  a  predicate,  unless  we  had  the  first  indispensable  predi- 
cate —  something  is  —  given  to  us  in  the  constitution  of  the  mind,  and  with  it  the 
notion  of  being,  entity  in  general,  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  pronounce 
any  of  those  judgments  by  which  we  affirm  the  existence  of  any  particular 
entity.  From  these  two  principles,  as  "essential  constituents  of  the  human 
being,"  Rosmini  derives  all  our  knowledge.  They  are  the  corner-stones  of  his 
philosophy.  —  M.  G.  G. 


PRIMARY   STIMULUS    OF   ATTENTION.  47 

96.  This  examination  divides  itself  into  three  questions : 
First,  what  is  the  stimuhis  which  primarily  excites  the  intel- 
lectual attention  of  the  human  being?  secondly,  what  is  the 
object  of  his  primary  cognitions?  thirdly  and  lastly,  what 
is  the  nature  of  these  primary  cognitions? 

ARTICLE  I. 

WHAT    IS     THE    STIMULUS    WHICH     PRIMARILY     EXCITES    THE    INTELLECTUAL 
ATTENTION  OF  MAN? 

97.  With  regard  to  the  first  question,  it  seems  probable 
to  me  that  not  all  the  accidental  sensations  have  power 
to  excite  the  attention  of  man ;  that  those  which  occur 
continually  through  the  healthy  functions  of  life  have  no 
such  power,  nor  perhaps  the  many  pleasurable  sensations 
which  so  entirely  satisfy  the  infant's  nature  that  it  wants 
nothing  beyond. 

98.  It  seems,  then,  that  the  sensations  which  primarily 
excite  human  activity  are  those  which  bring  a  feeling 
of  want,  and  which  in  consequence  set  in  motion  first 
instincts,  and  then  spontaneous  action.^  Thus  the  intel- 
lectual activity  does  not  move  gratuitously,  but  only  when 
man  feels  the  need  of  it :  he  calls  it  to  his  assistance,  as  he 
calls  on  his  other  powers  when  he  wants  to  remove  an 
annoyance,  or  to  satisfy  a  desire. 

ARTICLE    II. 

WHAT  IS  THE  OBJECT  OF  THE  PRIMARY  COGNITIONS? 

99.  With  regard  to  the  second  question,  the  objects 
of  intellectual  attention  must  certainly  be  the  objects  of  the 
wants  which  aroused  it.  But,  not  to  confuse  the  order 
of  sensation  with  that  of  intelligence,  we*  must  distinguish 

1  I  have  shown  in  my  Anthrojwlogy  how  sensations  stir  up  instincts  and  all 
spontaneous  action. 


48  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

what  proceeds  from  mere  animal  instinct,  and  then  add 
to  it  what  proceeds  from  intelligence.  The  animal  instinct 
is  always  stirred  by  a  group  of  sensations.  That  group  of 
sensations  sets  in  motion  the  animal ;  the  animal  activity 
thus  excited  seeks  another  group  of  sensations,  which  is  the 
term  of  the  animal  want.  This  second  group  of  sensations 
partly  completes  the  first  group  and  partly  extinguishes 
it,  and  in  any  case  satisfies  the  want.  Here  we  have  as 
yet  no  objects,  but  only  associated  sensations  :  it  is  always 
a  sensation  acting  in  accordance  with  its  own  laws.-^  But 
intellectual  activity  comes  to  the  aid  of  the  man,  who,  as 
an  animal,  wants  that  group  of  sensations.  That  activity 
cannot  be  explained  by  volitions  except  on  condition  that 
it  first  perceives  and  knows,  because  the  will  is  a  motion 
of  the  mind  towards  a  known  object.  The  intelligence  then 
must  first  perceive;  then  the  man  acts,  —  that  is,  he  wills 
after  having  perceived. 

ARTICLE   III. 

/  WHAT  ARE  PERCEPTIONS? 

But  what  is  this  process  of  perception?  By  it  the  mind, 
the  subject,  places  before  itself  certain  objects.  What  are 
these  objects?  Are  they  also  groups  of  sensations?  Here 
we  come  to  our  third  question  :  What  must  be  the  nature  of 
the  primary  acts  of  the  intellect  or  cognitions  ? 

104.  After  what  has  been  said,  it  will  probably  occur  to 
us  that  the  animal  want  which  induces  us  to  act,  having  for 
its  scope  and  term  a  certain  group  of  sensations,  this  group 
of  sensations,  and  nothing  more,  will  be  the  term  of  per- 
ception. And  at  the  first  glance  there  is  nothing  repugnant 
in  this.  But,  if  we  consider  that  when  we  speak  of  that 
group  of  sensations  from  our  present  position  of  advanced 

1  See  on  the  whole  of  this  question  the  Antropologia,  n.  426,  following  484-48G. 


WHAT   ARE    THE    PRIMARY   COGNITIONS.  49 

intellectual  development  it  has  ceased  to  be  an  assemblage 
of  sensations  merely,  but  lias  become  an  assemblage  of 
sensations  perceived  and  understood  by  our  intellect,  we 
shall  discover  our  mistake.  For  sensations  alone,  unac- 
companied by  any  ideal  element,  cannot,  in  their  naked 
realism,  become  objects  of  the  mind  which  has  not  yet 
contemplated  them.  How,  then,  does  the  mind  come  to 
contemplate  and  have  the  intuition  of  them? 

Simply  by  making  them  objects  to  itself  which  they  were 
not  before.  But  what  do  we  mean  by  an  object?  What  is 
the  notion  common  to  all  the  objects  of  the  mind?  It  is 
this,^ — that  they  are  all  entities^  and  the  term  '^  object" 
means,  in  fact,  only  an  entity.  The  mind,  in  perceiving 
sensations,  transforms  them  into  so  many  entities,  that 
being  the  proper  nature  of  the  intellectual  operation.  The 
word  "object"  is  used  in  reference  to  this  operation,  and 
the  word  ''  entity"  signifies  object  in  its  most  general  sense. 
It  follows  that,  apart  from  a  mind,  this  (ideal)  entity  has 
no  being,  and  that  the  mind  can  perceive  and  contemplate 
only  entities. 

102.  But,  if  sensations  are  not  entities,  how  can  they  be 
perceived  ? 

Sensations  are  not  themselves  entities,  but  they  are  cer- 
tain modes  of  action  of  entities.  In  analyzing  sensation, 
we  find  that  it  contains  two  elements,  —  the  subjective  and 
extra-subjective.  Considered  in  its  subjective  element,  the 
entity  to  which  the  sensation  belongs  is  the  subject :  sensa- 
tions are  the  passive  actions  of  that  entity.  Considered 
in  their  extra-subjective  element,  the  entity  to  which  they 
belong  is  different  from  the  subject  (extra-subjective) ,  and 
they  are  the  active  actions  of  that  entity.  The  intellect, 
then,  which  perceives  *  only  entities,  can  perceive  sensations 
only  in  the  entities  to  which  they  belong.  But  they  belong 
to  two  entities,  —  the  subject  and  the  extra-subjective  body. 


50     .  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

Now,  which  of  these  two  entities  is  the  object  of  the  pri- 
mary cognitions? 

103.  I  was  for  a  long  time  in  doubt  how  to  solve  this 
question ;  but  I  have  finally  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
man,  in  his  prifnary  cognitions,  perceives  his  adventitious 
sensations  as  belonging  to  extra-subjective  entities,  —  that 
is,  to  external  bodies.  I  was  led  to  this  conclusion  by  the 
following  train  of  reasoning :  — 

We  have  seen  that  attention  is  that  power  of  the  mind 
which  directs  the  intellect  to  one  object  rather  than  another ; 
attention  itself,  again,  being  directed  by  sensible  wants. 
Now  the  wants  of  the  human  being  in  the  first  moments  of 
existence  relate  entirely  to  external  things,  from  which  alone 
he  tries  to  obtain  the  pleasurable  sensations  which  he  desires 
and  needs.  He  does  not,  therefore,  direct  his  intellectual 
activity  to  sensation  as  a  passive  property  of  his  own  being, 
but  as  an  active  property  of  external  objects,  towards  which 
he  stretches  forth,  as  it  were,  to  seize  from  it  ever  new  and 
keener  sensations.  The  sensation,  in  so  far  as  it  is  passive, 
is  already  complete,  and  he  needs  neither  intelligence  nor 
will  to  enjoy  it ;  but  sensation,  as  an  action  coming  from 
external  bodies  to  his,  is  that  which  presents  itself  to  him, 
which  he  imagines  and  seeks  before  having  felt  it,  if  only 
he  has  some  indication  of  it,  and  is  impelled  towards  it  by 
the  laws  of  his  instinct  and  spontaneous  activity.  Since, 
then,  all  the  other  powers  of  man  tend  towards  the  external 
objects  which  cause  him  pleasurable  sensations,  —  as  the  in- 
fant, for  instance,  tends  towards  his  mother's  breast,  —  so 
also  his  intellectual  activity  must  move  in  the  same  direction, 
and  the  first  intellectual  act  of  man  must  be  the  perception 
of  external  bodies. 


GRADUAL    IMPROVEMENT   OF    PERCEPTIONS.  51 

ARTICLE   IV. 

OF  WHAT  IMPROVEMENT  THE  HUMAN  PERCEPTIONS  ARE  CAPABLE. 

ti)4.  There  are  degrees,  however,  in  the  perception  of 
j^xternitl  bodies  :  it  is  an  accomplishment  which  the  child 
does  not  master  at  once.  It  is  true  that  perception,  as 
perceptiori,  is  a  simple  act  of  the  mind,  performed  instan- 
taneously, the  essential  part  of  it  being  the  act  by  which  the 
mind  places  a  something  different  from  itself,  and  properly 
an  object,  before  itself,  and  by  this  act  becomes  conscious 
that  something  exists.  There  is  perception,  then,  so  soon  as 
the  mind  has  affirmed  this  to  itself. 

105.  Nevertheless  that  inward  affirmation,  by  which  nan 
recognizes  an  entity,  admits  many  differing  modes  and 
varieties,  not  indeed  in  itself  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  subjective 
act  of  the  mind,  but  as  regards  its  object,  which  may  vary, 
the  mind  being  able  to  affirm  diverse  existing  things,  enti- 
ties or  rather  diverse  modes  of  existence  or  entity. 

106.  These  entities^  which  become  the  objects  of  the  in- 
ward affirmations  of  the  mind,  admit  of  variation  for  two 
reasons, — 

(1)  Because,  although  the  entities  are  presented  by  sen- 
sation to  the  intelligence,  yet  the  latter  does  not  direct  its 
attention  fully  to  them  for  want  of  sufficient  stimulus,  and 
thus  does  not  affirm  them  in  all  their  particularities  and 
qualities,  but  only  in  a  more  or  less  perfect,  a  more  or  less 
definite,  degree. 

(2)  Because  sensation  itself,  owing  to  the  limitations  of 
the  special  senses  and  organs,  does  not  present^  them  to 
the  mind  at  once,  with  all  their  particularities  and  qualities, 
but  only  partially  and  successively. 

1  That  sense  is,  so  to  speak,  the  stage  on  which  objects  are  presented  to  the 
intelligence  as  spectator,  has  already  been  argued  by  ns  in_the  Opuscoli  Jilosojici, 
Vol.  I.    Ci,  Teodicea,  Nos.  55-60;  88-90;  153. 


52  ON    THE   KULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

107.  Hence  it  is  that  perception  goes  on  continually  per- 
fecting itself  in  two  ways,  i.  e.  1.  In  proportion  as  the 
stimuli  applied  to  the  intelligent  mind  compel  it  to  fix  its 
attention  on  whatever  is  most  definite  in  the  objects  pre- 
sented by  sense.  2.  In  proportion  as  sense  itself  presents 
various  aspects  of  the  entity,  in  other  words,  more  of  its 
properties  and  activities. 

108.  Let  us  say  a  few  words  on  both  these  forms  of 
gradual  improvement  in  perceptions ;  for,  unless  we  attend 
to  their  capacity  for  improvement,  we  cannot  arrive  at 
knowing  what  passes  in  the  mind  of  the  child  from  the 
first  moments  of  existence  up  to  the  freest  exercise  of 
reflection. 

Let  us  begin  by  considering  the  first  mode  in  which  the 
intellectual  perceptions  are  improved ;  and,  first  of  all,  let  us 
ask  what  is  the  condition  of  utmost  imperfection  in  wliich 
we  find  them.  When  we  know  this  lowest  point,  we  shall 
be  able  to  measure  from  it  the  degrees  of  perfection  gradu- 
ally attained  by  the  child. 

109.  The  first  and  most  imperfect  affirmation  inwardly 
pronounced  by  the  child  is  that  which,  if  formulated  by 
us  in  words  as  yet  unknown  to  him,  would  be  expressed 
thus  :   "I  feel,  I  have  the  sense  of,  an  entity.'' 

In  this  sentence,  he  determines  none  of  the  qualities  of 
the  entity  felt  by  him,  but  only  its  relation  to  the  actual 
felt  sensation,  which  is  that  of  agent.  Entity  and  agent 
are  identical  in  this  first  affirmation,  this  first  perception ; 
but  the  mode  of  the  action,  which  determines  the  action, 
remains  in  the  sensation  only,  without  becoming  the  object 
of  the  intellectual  attention.  The  latter  is  satisfied  with  a 
cognition  that  is  almost  wholly  negative ;  for  up  to  this 
time  it  is  scarcely  more  than  ideally-negative,  as  it  contains 
only  the  affirmation   of   an   agent,  without   expressing  any 


BEGINNING   OF   OBSERVATION.  53 

other  determination  beyond  the  relation  to  what  is  felt  by 
the  subject.^ 

And  this  is  precisely  that  wonderful  link  between  sensa- 
tion and  intellect,  which  many  find  it  so  supremely  difficult 
to  understand  that  they  reject  our  philosophy  because  they 
cannot  overcome  the  difficulty.  We  would  urge  them  to 
long  and  deep  meditation  on  the  unity  and  identity  of  the 
sensitive  and  intelligent  subject,  which,  once  understood,  all 
difficulty  disappears.  For  he  who  has  arrived  at  seeing  that 
identity,  sees  also,  at  once,  how  the  subject  (the  human 
mind)  can  find  in  sensation  the  determination  of  the  entity 
which  it  sees  and  affirms  through  the  intellect.  But  we 
have  spoken  of  these  things  elsewhere,  and  must  not  re- 
peat  ourselves   too   often. 

110.  That  which  the  intellect  perceives  in  its  first  and 
most  imperfect  perception  of  an  object  is,  then,  the  action 
which  an  entity  different  from  the  subject  has  performed  on 
the  subject,  but  nothing  more.  It  does  not  think  of  the  mode 
of  such  action,  as  it  takes  place  in  sensation ;  and  this  mode^ 
remaining  outside  the  intellectual  attention,  all  the  special 
qualities  and  properties  of  the  object  remain  also  outside 
its  cognition.  The  subject  knows  only  that  there  is  an  entity 
which  acts,  but  it  feels  and  does  not  know  how  it  acts. 

Later  on,  indeed,  the  subject  (man),  impelled  by  his  wants, 
fixes  his  attention  not  only  on  the  agent,  but  on  the  mode 
also  of  its  action,  and  it  is  then  that  his  perception  of  the 
entity  becomes  more  perfect  by  becoming  gradually  more 
positive.  In  fact,  it  is  by  observation  of  the  manner  in 
which  an  entity  acts  upon  us,  and  of  the  effects  which  it 
produces  in  us,  that  we  find  out  its  properties  and  qualities 
and  all  its  conditions.     This  is  precisely  the  gradual  work 

1  The  reader  must  remember  that  I  make  negative  or  ideally-negative  cognition 
of  a  thing  to  consist  in  two  elements,  —  1.  An  entity  in  general ;  2.  A  determina- 
tion of  it,  consisting  in  a  simple  relation.  —  Se§  Neio  Essay,  No,  1234  and  foil. 


54  ON    THE    RULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

performed  l)y  the  mind  ;  and  here  begins  the  art  of  observa- 
tion, which,  issuing  from  the  infant's  cradle,  becomes  a  giant 
in  tlie  mind  of  a  Galileo,  and  each  day  reveals  to  man  new 
secrets  of  nature. 

We  have  here  traced  the  first  growth  of  perception,  which 
increases  and  becomes  more  perfect  in  proportion  as  the  in- 
tellectual attention  is  directed  to  every  part  of  the  sensations, 
and  conveys  them,  as  it  were,  one  by  one,  from  the  sense  to 
the  understanding.  I  mean  that  the  mind  perceives  them 
one  after  another,  by  its  intelligence,  and  distinctly  affirms 
them  by  its  inward  judgment. 

111.  But  the  intellectual  attention  cannot  go  beyond  this 
to  observe  what  is  not  brought  before  it  by  sensation.  This 
is  another  of  its  limitations  ;  this  is  the  second  line  of  prog- 
ress assigned  to  perception.  Its  field  is  ever  increasing  with 
the  increase  in  the  number  of  sensations  presented  to  it  by 
the  matter  or  term  of  its  operation. 

The  object  perceived  by  the  infant  for  the  first  time  varies 
to  his  perception  as  it  comes  before  him  again  and  again,  — 
that  is,  the  child,  although  he  always  perceives  that  object 
as  acting  on  him  and  producing  a  sensation,  does  not  per- 
ceive it  as  acting  in  the  same  manner  or  in  the  same  degree, 
nor  as  producing  only  the  sensation  first  felt,  but  others 
also,  one  after  the  other.  At  first,  then,  he  perceives 
a  simple  force,  which  produces  in  him  a  given  sensation,  — 
^the  touch  of  a  hand,  for  example.  But  afterwards  he  suffers 
a  number  of  sensations,  which  reveal  to  him  so  many  actions 
coming  from  agents  other  than  himself ;  and  at  last  he  dis- 
covers (through  the  identity  of  space)  ^  that  all  the  sensa- 
tions come  to  him  from  a  single  agent,  or  one  he  believes 

1  In  the  Orif/in  of  Ideas  (Nos.  941  and  foil.)  it  is  shown  how  the  reference  of 
several  perceptions  to  one  object  as  their  cause  results  in  the  mind  in  virtue  of 
the  identity  of  the  space  to  which  thece  various  sensations  are  referred.  It  was 
his  partial  glimpse  of  this  truth  which  led  Descartes  to  believe  that  he  had  found 
in  space  the  actual  essence  of  body. 


PROCESS   OF   PERCEPTION.  55 

to  be  single,  —  that  is,  from  a  body.  Thus  at  first,  in  the 
sensations  of  touch,  smell,  hearing,  and  taste,  he  will  per- 
ceive so  many  different  forces,  and  therefore  entities  ;  but 
he  will  very  soon  arrive,  by  greater  attention,  at  the  belief 
that  all  these  entities  are  only  one  body,  from  which  proceed 
this  variety  of  effects  upon  him,  and  thus  he  will  improve  his 
perception  of  that  body. 

112.  By  degrees  his  mind  will  take  another  step,  and  will 
harmonize  sight  with  touch.  At  first,  he  \%ill  perceive  by 
sight  one  single  object,  one  single  force  ;  so  that  all  the 
objects  before  his  eyes  are  seen  as  one,  and  form  a  variously- 

.  colored  surface.  But  very  soon  he  will  learn,  by  the  joint 
exercise  of  touch  and  sight,  to  read  the  various  colors  pre- 
sented to  his  mind  as  signs  of  distinct  things,  not  super- 
ficial only,  but  solid  ;  and  thus  through  the  eye,  by  means  of 
a  judgment,  he  comes  to  the  perception  of  external  bodies. 

113.  Hence  the  perceptions  of  external  bodies,  which  con- 
stitute the  first  order  of  cognitions,  are  arrived  at  through 
the  following  mental  processes  :  — 

1.  The  mind  becomes  conscious  with  each  sensation  of 
the  existence  of  an  agent,  the  object  of  the  spirit,  in  which 
resides  the  essence  of  intellectual  perception. 

2.  The  mind  unites  various  sensations,  received  from  the 
four  senses^  touch,  smell,  taste,  and  hearing,  each  of  which 
separately  had  made  it  conscious  of  the  existence  of  an 
agent,  so  that  it  now  attributes  them  to  a  single  agent,  the 
common  origin  of  all:  thus  it  perceives  body,  —  i,  e.  forms 
the  general  idea  of  body. 

3.  The  mind  distinguishes  in  the  single  sensation  of  sight 
the  different  colors  which  it  learns  to  recognize  as  signs  of 
those  same  bodies  perceived  by  touch,  and  to  which  it  has 
already  learnt  to  refer  many  sensations  of  the  various 
senses. 

These  are  distinct  operations  of  the  mind,  but  thek  effect 


56  ON    THE   RULING   riUNCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

is  always  intellectual  perception ;  and  therefore  they  do  not 
constitute  various  orders  of  cognition,  but  one  only,  the 
first :  it  is  always  perception  itself  that  the  mind,  in  all 
these  operations,  repeats  and  improves.^ 

ARTICLE   V. 

TO  THE  FIRST  ORDER  OF  COGNITIONS,  BESIDES  PERCEPTIONS,  BELONG  ALSO 
THE  MEMORY  OF  PERCEPTIONS  ;  THE  IMPERFECT-SPECIFIC  IDEAS  ;  AND 
THE  ASSOCIATIONS  OF  THE  THREE  SPECIES  ENUMERATED,  TOGETHER 
WITH  THE  WHOLE  ACTION  AWAKENED  BY  THEM  IN  THE  MIND. 

114.  The  mind  performs  several  other  operations  without 
going  beyond  the  first  order  of  intellectual  acts  or  cognitions. 
In  fact,  the  imaginative  memory,  which  retains  and  repro- 
duces past  sensations,  cannot  be  said  to  belong  to  another 
order  of  cognitions  ;  for  it  changes  neither  the  object  nor  its 
term  nor  the  matter  of  the  operation,  but  only  the  faculty 
whereby  the  mind  operates  upon  that  matter.  Therefore  the 
perception  which  I  remember  and  reproduce  is  always  the 
same  as  regards  knowledge.  I  know  by  that  operation  only 
the  very  same  mental  object  and  no  other. 

115.  In  the  same  manner  the  association  of  several  per- 
ceptions, or  imaginative  memories  of  perception,  does  not  go 
beyond  the  first  order  of  cognitions  when  it  consists  only  of 
a  simple  association  of  coexistences  in  the  mind,  without 
any  analysis  or  synthesis  of  the  perceptions  by  the  under- 
standing. 

116.  In  the  third  place,  the  instincts,  and  in  general  the 
whole  spontaneous  activity  set  in  motion  by  perceptions, 
and  by  the  memory  and  imaginary  reproduction  of  them,  are 
operations  which  do  not  exceed  the  limits  of  the  first  order 
of  cognitions,  of  the  first  stage  of  human  intelligence. 

1  Hence  we  see  that,  althouo;]!  tliere  is  a  proj^ress  of  the  mind  from  one  order  of 
cognitions  to  the  other,  and  it  is  this  which  marks  the  steps  of  our  advance,  there 
is  also  another  progress  made  by  the  mind  within  the  same  order  of  cognitions, 
—  a  progress  which  goes  on  through  life,  and  never  ocasef-. 


FULL-SPECIFIC    IMPERFECT    IDEAS.  57 

117.  In  the  fourth  place,  the  full-specific  but  imperfect 
ideas  belong  to  the  same  stage. ^ 

We  mean  by  "full-specific''  ideas,  the  things  themselves 
which  we  perceive,  considered  merely  as  possible,  without 
adding  the  thought  of  their  real  existence. 

118.  If  I  perceive  a  pomegranate,  I  retain  the  memory  of 
my  perception.  The  memory  of  the  pomegranate,  which 
yesterday  I  saw,  touched,  tasted,  intellectually  perceived, 
is  more  than  the  simple  idea  of  it.  For  the  object  of  my 
thought  is  not  simply  the  image  of  that  pomegranate  con- 
sidered as  a  type,  a  possibility  of  pomegranates,  but  it  is 
that  image  referred  to  the  pomegranate  of  yesterday ;  it  is 
the  image  of  that  particular  pomegranate,  and  I,  in  remem- 
bering it,  do  not  think  solely  of  the  image,  but  of  the  actual 
thing.  But,  if  I  should  entirely  forget  the  pomegranate  of 
yesterday,  and  yet  should  in  fancy  contemplate  the  image 
of  a  pomegranate,  which  image  I  have  retained  from  my 
previous  perception,  though  I  do  not  now  refer  it  to  the 
perception  which  I  suppose  myself  to  have  utterly  forgotten, 
in  that  case  the  image  contemplated  by  my  understanding 
represents  to  me  only  a  possible  pomegranate,  not  this  or 
that  one,  or  any  real  pomegranate.  The  object  of  my 
thought  in  this  case  is  an  idea  which  I  term  the  full-specific 
imperfect  idea. 

119.  I  call  this  idea  specific  because  it  is  not  attached  to 
any  real  individual,  but  is  the  type  of  infinite  possible  in- 
dividuals :  it  determines,  therefore,  a  class  or  species  of 
individuals. 

I  call  it  fully -specific  because  I  am  supposing  that  it  pre- 
serves all  the  qualities,  even  the  accidental  ones,  of  the 
pomegranate  previously  perceived  by  me,  so  that  it  is  not  an 
abstract  idea,  but  one  which  represents  individuals  invested 
with  all  their  peculiarities. 

1  It  is  necessary  to  consider  attentively  the  difference  between  the  three  modes 
of  the  specific  idea  of  which  we  have  spoken  in  the  Origin  of  Ideas,  Nos.  648-50. 


58  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

Finally,  I  call  that  full-specific  idea  imperfect  because  that 
type  does  not  represent  to  me  the  perfect  pomegranate,  but 
a  pomegranate  such  as  the  one  I  perceived,  with  all  the  de- 
fects and  imperfections  which  may  belong  to  it. 

120.  The  action  of  the  understanding,  in  passing  from 
perception  to  the  full-specific  imperfect  idea,  is  that  which  is 
called  generalization. 

This  passage  is  exceedingly  easy,  because,  the  perceptive 
acts  of  the  mind  being  transitory,  as  soon  as  the  object  is 
withdrawn  from  the  external  sense,  perception  ceases.  But 
though  it  has  ceased,  it  leaves  behind  it  two  traces  or  effects, 
—  the  image  of  the  thing  perceived,  which  may  be  suggested 
by  our  fancy,  or  recalled  by  our  will  or  by  some  external  ac- 
cident ;  and  the  memory  of  the  past  perception.  These  two 
effects  differ  in  themselves  ;  and,  although  so  long  as  they 
coexist  in  the  mind  they  may  easily  be  taken  the  one  for  the 
other,  yet,  when  the  memory  ceases  and  the  image  remains, 
or  when  the  image  fades  away,  the  memory  remains,  or 
when  one  or  the  other  becomes  faint,  they  are  found  to  be 
distinct  in  the  mind.  Still  more  do  they  become  separate 
and  distinct  when  the  child  receives  other  perceptions  from 
the  same  thing ;  for  then  the  image  is  the  same,  while,  on 
the  contrary,  each  perception  brings  a  distinctly  different 
remembrance. 

Again,  if  the  child  receives  perceptions  from  other  things 
almost  exactly  similar  to  the  first,  —  as  for  instance  of 
several  oranges,  which  could  not  be  distinguished  from 
each  other  except  by  minute  differences  to  which  the  child 
at  first  pays  no  attention,  —  his  memories  multiply,  while 
the  image  remains  one  and  is  common  to  all  the  objects. 
Hence  it  easily  happens  that  the  image  in  the  mind  stands 
out  distinctly  from  the  memory  of  past  perceptions,  and  in 
this  separate  condition  the  mind  quickly  finds  the  basis  of 
the  full-specific  imperfect  idea  of   which  we  have  spoken. 


PERIOD    OF   FIRST   COGNITIONS.  69 

because  it  sees  at  once  and  naturally,  in  the  image  it  pos- 
sesses, the  image  of  a  thing  which  does  not  exist  but  is 
possible. 

CHAPTER    11. 

ON     THE     ACTIVITIES    WHICH     RESPOND     TO     THE     FIRST     OliDER 
OF    COGNITIONS. 

ARTICLE    I. 
OISTINCTION  BETWEEN  THE  TWO  FIRST  PERIODS  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

121.  In  summing  up  what  has  been  previously  said,  we 
find  that  to  cognitions  of  the  first  order  belong  perceptions; 
the  memory  of  perceptions  (images  taken  alone  are  not 
cognitions,  but  internal  sensations)  ;  the  specific-imperfect 
ideas  based  on  the  image ;  the  various  associations  of  per- 
ceptions, memories,  and  specific-imperfect  ideas  ;  and,  finally, 
the  instincts  and  voluntary  operations  which  follow  upon  this 
first  stage  of  intellectual  development. 

122.  When  does  this  intellectual  development  begin  in 
the  infant?  There  is  probably  not  a  moment  of  its  life  in 
which  it  has  not  accidental  sensations,  at  least  internal 
ones,^  —  sensations  which  began  in  the  mother's  womb. 
Does  intellectual  activity  accompany  every  sensation  from 
the  very  first? 

I  incline  to  believe  the  negative.  I  have  already  said  that 
the  simple  sensations  do  not  arouse  the  activity  of  the  un- 
derstanding ;  the  sensation,  which  ends  with  itself,  pacifies 
rather  than  excites  to  new  activity.  Those  alone  wliich  give 
rise  to  a  feeling  of  want^  the  want  of  new  sensations,  excite 
the  intellectual  attention. 

123.  It  is  true  that  these  physical  wants  which  excite  the 
intellectual  activity  of  the  infant  must  arise  very  early,  and 
with  them  come  restlessness  and  the  attempt  to  satisfy  them, 

1  I  say  "  at  least  internal,"  because  I  suppose  the  foetus  to  be  in  a  state  of  sleep, 
as  I  have  said  in  the  Anthropoloffy  (No.  359).  Usually  the  infant  does  not  open 
its  eyes  until  eight  days  after  its  birth. 


60  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

which  will  also  last  some  time  before  they  succeed  in  rousing 
intelligence  to  their  aid.  I  conjecture,  therefore,  that  the 
moment  in  which  intelligence  awakens  to  activity  is  marked 
by  the  infant's  first  smile. ^ 

By  this  ineffable  expression  of  its  joy,  the  infant  seems 
to  hail  the  light  of  the  day  which  is  dawning  upon  him.  His 
reasonable  soul  rejoices  in  the  truth  which  it  recovers,  and 
springs  forward,  as  it  were,  to  clasp  it.  How  great,  how 
solemn  a  moment  to  the  human  soul,  must  be  the  first  act 
of  its  intelligence,  the  sense  of  a  new  and  boundless  life, 
the  discovery  of  its  ow^n  immortality  !  Is  it  possible  tliat  an 
event  so  stupendous  and  so  startling  to  the  infant,  though 
the  adult  can  form  no  idea  of  it,  should  not  be  manifested 
externally  by  signs  of  exuberant  joy?  You  are  right,  then, 
O  mothers,  who  watch  so  eagerly  for  your  infant's  first 
smile,  who  try  to  induce  it,  who  welcome  it  with  such  trem- 
bling joy  in  every  fibre  of  your  being.  You  alone  are  the 
true  interpreters  of  those  first  utterances  of  infancy  which, 
in  the  shape  of  a  smile,  break  from  the  lips  and  the  eyes 
and  the  whole  countenance  of  the  little  intelligent  being ; 
you  alone  understand  its  mystery ;  you  understand  tliat 
from  that  hour  he  knows  you  and  speaks  to  you  ;  and  you, 
the  first  object  of  human  intelligence,  you  alone  know  how 
to  answer  this  language  of  love,  and  to  make  yourselves  the 

1  The  first  period,  in  which  the  child  has  only  a  sensitive  activity,  would  thus 
last  about  six  weeks,  as  the  infant  scarcely  smiles  or  sheds  tears  before  it  is  six 
weeks  old.  The  first  week  of  its  existence  would  be  spent,  under  the  influence  of 
the  external  air  and  of  the  stimuli  which  surround  and  press  upon  it  on  all  sides, 
in  the  passage  from  the  dormant  state,  during  which  sensation  is  wholly  internal 
and  wrapped  up  in  self,  into  that  of  complete  wakefulness,  in  which  it  becomes 
conscious  of  the  world  without,  and  develops  its  sensitive  activity  through  com- 
munication with  the  corporeal  objects  that  are  as  yet  strange  to  it.  This  it  does, 
setting  in  motion  the  alternate  action  of  the  nervous  system,  which  will  continue 
tliroughout  life  (see  Anthrojjology ,  Nos.  355-365).  When  this  great  operation, 
which  requires  the  whole  effective  activity  of  the  new-born  child,  is  comiileted,  and 
the  important  nervous  action  properly  regulated  (which  will  take  about  six  weeks), 
the  child  has  the  necessary  leisure  for  the  next  great  operation,  the  setting  in  motion 
of  the  intellectual  faculties. 


VITAL   AND    SENSUAL   INSTINCTS.  61 

image  and  type  of  the  truth  which  is  intelligible,  and  which 
shines  by  its  own  light. ^ 

124.  If  we  admit  this  conjecture,  it  follows  that,  from  the 
earliest  infancy,  there  are  two  well-defined  periods  to  be 
distinguished,  — 

1.  The  period  of  merely  sensitive  development,  which 
begins  with  existence  itself. 

2o  The  period  of  the  first  stage  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment, which  begins  with  the  child's  first  smile. 

ARTICLE    II. 
ACTIVITY  PROPER  TO  THE  FIRST  PERIOD. 

125.  During  the  first  period,  the  child  has  only  feelings 
and  animal  wants,  and  its  activity  is  solely  animal.^ 

1  The  smile  of  the  infant  is  looked  upon  by  mothers  as  a  sign  of  intelligence. 
Here  are  a  mother's  words  upon  it:  "At  this  backward  stage  of  intelligence,  it 
(the  infant)  is  interested  by  the  human  face.  While  nothing  material  yet  attracts 
it,  it  is  awakened  to  sympathy  ;  a  cheerful  coimtenance,  a  caressing  tone,  will  win  it 
to  a  smile  ;  the  little  creature  is  evidently  animated  by  happy  feelings  ;  we,  who 
know  their  expression,  recognize  them  in  him  with  delight.  In  this  fact  there  is 
nothing  that  belongs  to  the  senses.  The  person  who  stands  beside  his  cradle  is 
sometimes  not  even  his  nurse,  and  has  perhaps  disturbed  him,  and  subjected  him 
to  tiresome  manipulation.  Never  mind  ;  she  has  smiled  at  him,  and  he  has  felt 
himself  loved,  and  loves  in  return.  It  would  seem  as  if  that  new  soul  liad  the 
intuition  of  another  and  said  to  it :  'I  know  thee.'  "  (Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure, 
De  V Education  Progressive,  s.  ii.  c.  ii.)  I  have  already  expressed  elsewhere  my 
suspicion  that,  in  the  intercourse  between  two  human  beings,  there  occurs,  besides 
material  impressions  and  animal  sensations,  a  recondite  communication  between 
their  minds,  of  which,  however,  the  medium  is  sensation.  In  the  smile  of  the 
infant  something  of  this  kind  seems  to  take  place.  In  this  case,  the  infant  intelli- 
gence seems  to  receive  its  first  impulse  through  this  mysterious  communication. 
Incipe,  parve  puer,  risu  cognoscere  matrem.  — (Virgil,  Eel.,  iv.  50.) 

2  By  <'  activity  "  I  mean  a  real  stirring  of  the  child's  faculties.  Now,  in  order 
that  they  should  be  stirred,  not  only  must  the  child  have  sensations,  but  these 
sensations  must  produce  a  want  of  other  sensations,  and  thus  generate  the  instinc- 
tive actions.  If  we  remember  this,  we  shall  not  wonder  that  the  intuition  of 
being,  innate  in  man,  fails  to  produce  in  him  of  itself  any  activity.  This  intui- 
tion is  a  completed  act  of  the  subject  man ;  and,  when  an  act  is  completed,  the  sub- 
ject rests  in  it.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  that  the  subject  should  feel  impelled  to 
an  act  not  yet  performed,  in  order  to  arouse  him  into  motion,  —  that  is,  to  the 
action  by  which  he  carries  out  and  completes  the  act.  See,  as  regards  the  manner 
in  which  several  feelings  blend  into  one,  and  produce  that  state  of  restlessness 
which  I  have  denominated  affection,  from  which  springs  the  instinct  that  moves 
as,  Anthropology i  No.  485. 


62  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    O^F   METHOD. 

This  activity  is  in  part  congenital  in  the  animal,  and  I 
have  given  it  the  name  of  vital  instinct  in  the  work  I  have 
entitled  "Anthropology/'  to  which  I  must  refer  the  reader 
who  may  wish  to  inquire  further  into  this  matter. 

There  also  he  will  see  how  from  the  vital  instinct  arises 
the  sensual  instinct^  another  branch  of  the  animal  activity 
of  which  we  are  speaking. 

126.  It  would  be  difficult  to  define  whether  the  first  work- 
ings of  sensual  instinct  begin  in  the  mother's  womb,  or  as 
soon  as  the  animal  comes  in  contact  with  the  atmosphere,  or 
some  time  later. -^ 

It  seems  likely,  however,  that  the  first  impulse  given  to 
the  exercise  of  the  sensual  instinct  is  the  want  of  food.^ 

Respiration,  the  internal  and  slow  combustion  which 
begins  in  him  the  moment  he  sees  the  light,  consumes  the 
oxygen  and  carbon  necessary  to  his  blood,  and  thence  the 
want  excited  in  him  to  repair  their  loss  by  food.  The  want 
of  food  is  excited  in  the  same  manner  by  the  losses  his 
body  sustains  through  perspiration  and  other  secretions. 
The  motion  of  the  lips  by  which  he  clings  to  the  mother's 
breast  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  sensual 
instinct.^ 

The  sensual  instinct,  then,  is  first  stirred  to  action  hj  pam 
rather  than  by  pleasure,  using  the  word  "pain"  to  mean  any 
kind  of  discomfort,  any  kind  of  troublesome  want. 

127.  The  troublesome  wants  always  remain,  even  later  on, 
the  most  efficacious  stimuli  to  the  activity  of  the  sensual 
instinct,  but  this  instinct  very  soon  passes  from  its  primitive 
state.     It  is  modified  by  the  experiments  it  makes  ;  for,  as  I 

1  See  on  this  question  the  JSfew  Essay,  No.  1294. 

2  Respiration  belongs  to  the  vital  instinct. 

3  The  child  begins  very  early  to  put  out  his  mouth  towards  external  objects, 
and  when  he  can  use  liis  hands  he  carries  everything  to  his  mouth  ;  from  which 
it  would  seem  that  he  is  impelled  to  use  his  mouth,  and  that  his  gums  and  lips  are 
his  first  organs  of  touch. 


COMMUNICATION   THROUGH    SENSATION.  63 

have  already  observed,^  the  activity  of  any  human  faculty 
produces,  besides  the  momentary  action,  a  permanent  effect 
on  the  man,  a  new  state  and  condition,  especially  in  the 
faculty  exercised.  The  sensual  instinct,  then,  which  on  its 
first  awakening  is  stirred  only  by  pain,  soon  comes  to  be 
drawn  out  by  pleasure  also,  and  pleasure  becomes  a  want 
to  it.  Thus,  when  the  child,  through  the  satisfaction  of  his 
most  troublesome  wants,  has  procured  for  himself  sensations 
which  he  has  found  to  be  pleasurable  (for  kind  Nature  has 
added  pleasure  to  the  satisfaction  of  our  wants) ,  he  has  two 
motives  in  seeking  sensations, — to  avoid  pain  and  to  enjoy 
pleasure.  From  these  two  sources  springs  the  craving  for 
sensations,  which  henceforth  accompanies  man  through  life, 
and  which  becomes  so  various,  so  powerful,  and  also  so 
capricious  and  ill-regulated. 

128.  I  have  already  hinted  that  I  more  than  suspect  a 
communication  between  human  souls  through  sensation. 
This  would  be  a  fact  worth  verifying  by  the  most  careful 
observation.  Let  me  add,  always  in  the  way  of  conjecture, 
that  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  not  only  does  the  subject 
(man)  receive,  together-  with  the  sensation  produced  in 
him  by  a  person,  a  feeling  which  is  the  immediate  effect  of 
the  intelligent  soul  acting  through  the  sensations  excited, 
but  that  a  similar  communication  takes  place  in  purely  sen- 
sitive beings.  I  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  the  kitten, 
when  it  plays  with  a  ball  of  paper,  or  a  straw  tied  to  the 
end  of  a  string,  is  only  seeking  to  vary  its  material  sensa- 
tions :  it  seems  to  me  rather  that  it  is  instinctively  seeking 
in  its  play  something  animated,  something  which  lives  and 
moves  of  itself,  and  that  it  ceases  to  play  as  it  grows  older 
because  it  knows  better,  and  has  learnt  to  distinguish  be- 
tween what  is  and  is  not  alive.  Mad.  Necker  makes  a 
somewhat  subtle  observation  about  children   in   relation  to 

1  See  La  Societa  e  il  suofine  ("  Society  and  its  End  "),  L.  IV.  c.  vi. 


64  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

this  :  she  is  giving  the  reason  why  children  get  tired  of  their 
toys,  and  says  that  this  happens  when  the}^  have  exhausted 
every  way  of  looking  at  them  and  pulling  them  to  pieces. 
So  long  as  tliere  is  something  new  to  find  out  in  them,  the 
child  thinks  there  is  spontaneous  motion,  a  soul,  in  material 
things ;  but,  when  all  novelty  is  at  an  end,  then  the  thing  is 
dead  to  him  and  he  cares  no  more  about  it.^  To  this  same 
tendency  towards  animated  things  should,  perhaps,  be  at- 
tributed the  attraction  which  shining  objects  exercise  on 
certain  animals.  The  lark,  it  is  said,  is  attracted  by  a 
mirror ;  the  nightingale,  by  any  kind  of  light ;  the  magpie 
instinctively  robs  and  conceals  precious  stones.^  But,  leav- 
ing aside  these  and  similar  facts  as  to  the  delusive  belief 
of  animals  in  the  life  of  whatever  moves  or  gives  them 
varying  sensations,  it  is  certain  that  between  animals  of  the 
same  species  there  is  a  peculiar  intimacy  which  resembles 
friendship.  How  puppies  and  kittens  delight  in  playing 
with  each  other !  Many  animals  live  gregariously  in  flocks 
and  herds,  like  families,  tribes,  peoples.  All  that  regards 
their  mutual  action,  in  the  reproduction  and  care  of  the 
young,  seems  to  presuppose  this  power  of  communication 
between  them.  Meanwhile  we  may  place  among  incontest- 
able facts  that  the  sensations  received  by  animals  from 
each  other  are  of  a  kind  altogether  different  from  those  they 
receive  from  inanimate  objects.  The  affection  shown  by 
parents  for  their  offspring,  in  all  species,  is  an  instinct  which 
might  easily  be  explained  by  my  supposition.  A  certain 
sensuous  affinity  is  found  even  in  animals  of  different 
species.  Dogs,  horses,  elephants,  etc.,  take  mutual  likings, 
and  many  animals  are  bound  to  man  by  close  ties  of  domes- 
tication and  faithful  service.  To  the  same  principle  of  a 
secret  action,  interchanged  between   their   souls,  might  be 

1  U Education  Progressive,  L.  III.  c.  v. 

2  Every  one  knows  Rossini's  opera  of  the  Gazza  Ladra. 


INFLUENCE   OF   HABIT.  65 

attributed  the  antipathies  and  enmities  of  certain  animals 
towards  others,  such  as  that  of  the  cat  for  the  rat,  etc. 
Given,  then,  this  communication  between  sensitive  beings, 
it  must  take  place  in  the  child  also ;  but  I  do  not  think  its 
action  begins  before  that  of  the  intelligent  soul,  and  it  ap- 
pears to  me  that  both  have  their  point  of  departure  in  the 
first  smile  of  the  child. 

129.  Another  principle  of  action  belonging  to  pure  ani- 
mality  (although  a  similar  principle  is  also  found  in  the 
order  of  intelligence)  is  that  of  imitation.  We  have  already 
sufficiently  explained  it  elsewhere.-^  We  will  only  add  here 
that  the  animastic  ^  feelings  make  the  explanation  still  more 
clear  and  easy.  One  soul  feels  that  its  companion  is  in  a 
given  state,  say  of  joy.^  Sympathy  —  that  is,  the  taking  on 
of  a  fellow-feeling  —  arises  from  natural  benevolence,  and 
from  sympathy  comes  the  instinct  of  imitation.  Sympathy^ 
in  this  case,  is  the  passive  effect ;  imitation^  its  corresponding 
activity. 

130.  Among  the  pleasures  felt  by  the  animal,  and  which 
he  soon  learns  to  desire  eagerly,  is  that  of  action.  Action 
brings  with  it  many  special  physical  pleasures,  the  mere 
acceleration  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  increasing  vital- 
ity and  the  sense  of  it.  But  there  is  a  pleasure  inherent  in 
action  itself  beyond  the  partial  physical  pleasure  belonging 

1  The  reader  who  desires  will  find  it  in  the  Anthropology,  Nos.  487-490. 

2  We  give  this  name  to  the  feelings  excited  in  animals  by  their  communications 
with  each  other. 

3  It  is  necessary  to  know  that  certain  feelings  of  the  soul,  such  as  joy  for  in- 
stance, are  manifested  through  the  sensual  instinct  in  certain  bodily  movements, 
such  as  smiling.  Vice  versa,  man  perceives  in  his  companion's  smile  the  rejoicing 
soul.  Having  perceived  this,  he  takes  on  the  same  feeling,  and  from  the  same 
internal  gladness  follows  the  same  external  effect  of  smiling.  Sometimes  the 
contrary  happens  ;  that  is,  seeing  the  smiling  countenance,  he,  by  the  faculty  which 
unites  perception  (passive)  and  reproduction  (active),  imitates  the  smile,  and  thence 
passes  on  to  the  joy  manifested  by  it  ;  that  is,  he  sympathizes  with  it,  because  the 
smile  and  the  sense  of  joy  are  united,  and  the  one  produces  the  other,  and  vice 
versa. 


66  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

to  any  special  action ;  for  the  greater  our  activity,  the  more 
we  seem  to  live.  Hence  pleasure  in  action  springs  from, 
and  grows  with,  experience  up  to  a  certain  stage  in  the 
animal,  and  becomes  on  occasion  the  impulse  to  motion. 

131.  Finally,  the  animal  faculties  also  put  on  habits. 
Physical  nature  is  full  of  order,  but  this  order  itself  under- 
goes some  modification  through  habits.  Moreover,  habit 
makes  certain  actions  easier  and  more  pleasurable,  and  there- 
fore makes  any  interruption  or  cessation  of  them  more  dis- 
agreeable. Hence  spring  habitual  tastes  and  instincts,  which 
in  this  way  become,  in  the  animal  and  the  infant,  a  new 
principle  of  action. 

To  sum  up  :  the  activities  of  the  child  which  belong  to  the 
animal  order  are  as  follows:  1.  The  instinct  which  springs 
from  the  want  of  avoiding  pain ;  this  is  the  primitive  stage 
of  instinct ;  ^  2.  The  instinct  which  springs  from  the  want 
simply  to  feel  and  to  enjoy  pleasurable  sensations  ;  3.  The 
instinct  towards  animated  things,  whence  arises  sympathy  ; 
4.  The  instinct  of  imitation  following  on  sympathy  ;  5.  The 
instinct  and  want  of  action,  solely  for  the  pleasure  which 
arises  from  the  exercise  of  active  power ;  6.  Habit. 

ARTICLE    III. 

THE  ACTIVITIES  PROPER  TO  THE  SECO]:«)  PERIOD. 

132.  In  the  second  period  begins  the  action  of  intelli- 
gence ;  perceptions  and  imaginal  ideas  are  formed ;  hence 
a  new  activity  must  be  developed ;  for,  as  we  have  repeat- 
edly said,  every  passive  sensation  awakens  in  man  a  cor- 
responding action,  and  from  the  understanding  must  arise 
rational  action,  the  action  of  tlie  will. 

The  first  motor  of  the  will  consists  in  tliose  volitions  wliich 

1  "We  are  speaking  of  the  sensual  instinct ;  anterior  to  this  comes  the  vital 
instinct,  but  that  does  not  belong  to  the  development  of  the  child. 


SENSUAL   AND   INTELLECTUAL   ACTIVITIES.  67 

we  have  named  affective,^  in  which  the  subject  that  feels  and 
w;ills,  wills  the  object  perceived,  not  because  it  is  judged  to 
be  good,  but  mQi'ely  because  it  is  felt  to  be  pleasurable  ; 
mysterious  volitions,  as  difficult^  to  understand  thoroughly 
as  intellectual  perception  itself.  But,  although  aware  that 
few  have  formed  a  clear  conception  of  volitions  of  this  kind, 
while  many  are  ready  to  deny  their  existence,  we  are  never- 
theless constrained  to  admit  it  and  appeal  to  those  few  who 
by  earnest  thought  penetrate  into  the  nature,  of  such  voli- 
tions, and  to  whom,  therefore,  their  real  existence  ceases  to 
be  a  matter  of  doubt. 

It  must  be  observed  here  that  the  sensual  activity  does  not 
cease  with  the  appearance  of  the  intellectual  activity,  but 
the  development  of  the  child  becomes  more  complex  and 
more  difficult  to  describe  from  the  mutual  influence  of  the 
sensual  and  intellectual  operations,  and  from  the  multipli- 
city of  their  actions.  Nevertheless,  we  must  attempt  to 
give  a  brief  description  of  what  takes  place  in  the  human 
being  during  this  second  period. 

133.  In  the  first  period,  the  earliest  sensations  are  those 
received  from  inanimate  things,  and  not  till  later  does  the 
child  experience  the  animastic  feelings  of  which  we  have 
spoken. 

But  in  the  second  period,  in  which  the  intellect  is  set  in 
motion,  the  reverse  takes  place  :  the  first  step  of  the  cogni- 
tive faculty  seems,  as  we  have  said,  to  be  that  which  leads 
man  to  perceive  animated  things  ; .  the  clrild  perceives  his 
mother's  soul  in  her  countenance,  and  soon  he  begins  to 
seek  a  life  and  soul  in  all  other  things,  making  it  probable 

1  See  Anthropology,  Nos.  612-16. 

2  As  the  nature  of  this  difficulty  may  not  be  at  once  apparent  to  the  ordinary 
reader,  it  may  be  useful  to  explain  that  the  difficulty  lies  in  conceiving  a  volition 
without  an  intelligent  motive,  the  latter  being  always  a  judgment  of  the  under- 
standing that  the  object  willed  is  good.  It  is  the  presence  of  this  motive  which 
essentially  distinguishes  volition  from  instinct.  —  Note  of  the  Translator. 


68  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

that  not  till  much  later  does  he  come  to  be  fully  persuaded 
of  that  great  marvel,  the  existence  of  inanimate  things.^ 

As  the  animastic  sensations  by  their  nature  produce  in  the 
child  ]}liysical  affection  and  from  that  sympathy^  so  the  ani- 
mastic perceptions  produce  benevolence^  good- will,  which  is 
already  an  incipient  habitual  and  affective  volition.  In  < 
fact,  benevolence,  which  is  a  rational  affection,  cannot  be 
conceived  unless  we  suppose  a  living  being  towards  whom 
it  is  exercised  ;  for  what  is  inanimate,  if  we  conceive  it  really 
as  such,  and  do  not  associate  our  conception  of  it  imagina- 
tively with  some  element  of  life,  may  indeed  be  precious 
to  us  for  its  utility,  but  we  cannot  love  it,  or  feel  towards 
it  that  affection  termed  benevolence. 

134.  Now  the  child,  in  the  fulness  of  his  affection  and 
good-will,  infuses  them  into  everything,  and  this  is  a  fresh 

1  So  long  as  the  child  remains  ignorant  of  natural  laws,  and  is  not  quite  con- 
vinced  that  there  are  things  without  life,  he  has  an  immense  propensity  to  attrib- 
ute life  to  everything.  It  may  be  useful  to  place  before  the  reader  some  facts  in 
support  of  this  statement;  and,  although  such  facts  are  common  enough,  and 
every  one  who  has  been  in  the  habit  of  watching  children  could  supply  similar 
ones,  I  will  avail  myself  of  those  collected  by  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  Give  a  child  a  sugar-plum  in  a  box  :  he  will  open  the  box  every  minute  to 
see  if  the  sugar-plum  is  still  there.  Hide  yourself  behind  a  curtain,  and  his  delight 
when  he  sees  you  reappear  proves  that  it  would  have  been  to  him  a  most  sorrow- 
ful, but  by  no  means  unexpected,  occurrence  if  you  had  not  reappeared  at  all. 
The  keenness  of  his  joy  springs  often  from  his  relief  from  certain  fears  we  should 
not  have  suspected.  This  obscure  personification  of  inanimate  things  often  adds 
force  to  his  impressions.  Not  only  do  his  toy-soldiers  become  to  him  living  behigs, 
although  at  bottom  he  knows  the  truth  of  the  matter,  but  his  other  playthings, 
the  furniture,  the  things  he  uses,  seem  to  him  endowed  with  some  degree  of  life  ; 
and  the  tears  he  sheds  over  their  destruction  show  something  more  than  regret  for 
the  loss  of  a  thing  that  was  useful  to  him :  a  real  compassion  mixes  with  it.  *  Poor 
tea-cup!'  he  says,  his  little  heart  swelling  as  he  looks  on  the  fragments  of  the  cup 
he  has  broken;  '  I  was  so  fond  of  it! ' 

"Moreover,  the  child  believes  in  the  life  of  whatever  has  motion,  —  the  wind, 
the  thunder,  the  flames,  will  to  burn,  to  destroy,  to  carry  away. 

''  In  early  childhood  this  illusion  may  be  accompanied  by  deep  and  true  feeling: 
the  affection  of  little  girls  for  their  dolls  is  sometimes  very  touching.  A  very  little 
girl  whose  leg  had  to  be  cut  off  bore  the  operation  without  a  cry,  only  clasping  her 
doll  in  her  arms.  '  Now  I  am  going  to  cut  your  doll's  leg  off,'  said  the  surgeon,  smil- 
ing, when  the  operation  was  over:  the  poor  little  thing,  who  had  suffei-ed  so  much 


SYMPATHY   OF   CHILDREN    WITH   LIFE.  69 

proof  of  what  we  have  already  said,  that  all  things  are  to  him 
alive  and  intelligent.  When  the  little  girl  rushes  to  her 
mother's  arms,  and  after  having  smothered  her  with  kisses 
runs  to  kiss  and  caress  the  table  or  the  chair,  she  certainly 
does  not  lavish  her  caresses  on  them  as  inanimate  things, 
but  pours  out  on  them  some  of  her  affection  for  living  beings, 
without  stopping  to  consider  whether  tliese  are  living  or  not. 
Yea,  the  love  of  the  sentient  and  rational  creature  supposes 
by  its  very  essence  a  sentient  and  rational  object,  whether 
this  be  real  or  only  imagined.  Such,  then,  are  the  first  affec- 
tive volitions.  And,  as  Nature  implants  first  the  sensitive 
affection  as  the  preparation  and  beginning  of  the  intelligent 
affection,  which  alone  is  truly  love,  so  she  implants  in  the 
infant,  to  dispose  it  to  sensitive  affection,  a  physical  joy 
from  its  overflowing  organic  life,  filling  it  with  pleasure  as 
the  best  preparation  for  the  sensitive  affection.    Thus,  in  the 

without  a  word,  broke  into  a  passion  of  tears  at  this  cruel  proposal."  Other  facts 
of  a  similar  kind  may  be  found  in  the  *  Education  Progressive,'  L.  III.  c.  v.  Here 
I  must  point  out  that  what  takes  place  in  the  child's  mind  when  we  say  that  he 
sees  life  in  another  face,  or  in  things  that  move,  is  not  a  process  of  reasoning, 
for  to  argue  from  himself  to  other  objects  would  require  far  more  advanced  de- 
velopment than  we  suppose  him  to  have  reached.  He  has  an  immediate  percep- 
tion ;  in  other  words,  he  perceives  something  in  the  sensations  produced  in  him  by 
animated  things,  quite  different  from  the  effect  produced  by  a  dead  and  inert 
thing,  and  he  finds  greater  pleasure  in  the  former  than  the  latter.  Yet  more;  if 
that  which  man  perceives  is  always  an  entity,  a  something  that  exists,  as  I  have 
shown  in  the  '  New  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  Ideas,'  may  we  not  suspect  that  life 
is  essential  to  an  entity,  and  that  we  have  to  make  an  effort  to  believe  in  an  entity 
without  life  as  almost  an  impossibility?  This  suspicion  I  will  show  to  be  a  trutli 
capable  of  demonstration  in  the  Ontology,  please  God  I  publish  it.  Let  it  suffice 
for  the  present  that  I  have  laid  it  before  my  readers'  minds  as  a  suspicion  and  a 
conjecture. 

Nations  in  their  infancy  attribute  life  to  inanimate  objects  for  the  same 
reason  as  the  child.  This  fact,  both  in  the  common  people  and  in  children,  was 
observed  by  the  ancients.  Here  are  the  lines  quoted  from  the  poet  Lucillus  by 
Lactantius,  Instit.  I.  23:  — 

Terriculas  Lamias  Fauni,  quas  Pompiliique 
Instituere  Numoe;  tremit  lias  ;  hie  omnia  ponit. 
Ut  pucri  infantes  crcdnnt  signa  omnia  ahena 
Viverc,  et  esse  homines  ;  sic  isti  omnia  ficta, 
Vera  putant ;  credunt  signis  con  inesse  in  ahenis 
Pergula  pictorum  5  veri  nihil ;  omnia  ficta. 


70  ON    THE    KULING   PllINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

admirable  constitution  of  the  human  creature,  all  is  brought 
into  union  and  harmony.  The  sensitive  being,  already  full 
of  happiness,  is  duly  disposed  to  feel  and  attach  itself  to 
another  sensitive  being.  In  man  this  natural  affection  soon 
acts  on  the  will,  which  finds  pleasure  in  it,  and  generates 
within  itself,  as  it  were,  the  love,  which  again  becomes  the 
source  of  other  rational  joys,  mingled  with  the  primitive 
animal  ones,  and  so,  in  a  happy  circle,  disposing  man  to 
more  affection  and  more  love.^ 

Assuredly,  in  tliat  first  dawn  of  human  intelligence  there 
is  neither  merit  nor  free-will  nor  conscience.  But  who  that 
considers  it  attentively  can  deny  that  there  is  already  a  mo- 
rality? What  is  morality  but  the  act,  or  the  disposition  of 
an  intelligent  will  towards  other  intelligent  beings  ?  If  the 
will  gives  its  affection  to  these  beings, — that  is,  if  it  loves 
them  as  they  require  to  be  loved,  —  it  is  certainly  good  ;  but, 
if  it  assumes  toward  them  an  attitude  of  aversion  and  hatred, 
it  is  evil.  The  observation,  then,  of  the  natural  benevolence 
of  children  confirms  what  I  have  asserted  in  the  ' '  Treatise 
on  Conscience  "  respecting  the  existence  of  a  morality  ante- 
rior to  conscience,  as,  on  the  other  hand,  the  theories  there 
put  forward  throw  a  vivid  light  on  the  results  of  the  dili- 
gent observation  of  what  happens  in  the  earliest  stages  of 
infancy. 

135.  Yet  more :  the  period  of  six  months  may  be  as- 
signed as  that  proper  to  affective  volitions.  After  that 
age,  it  would  seem  that  a  real  judgment  of  the  goodness 

1  Let  me  here  again  quote  Mad.  Necker  :  "  Quand  on  pense  aux  plaisirs  si  vifs, 
si  f aciles  de  cet  age,  a  ce  present,  temps  unique  ou  se  passe  I'enfame,  et  temps  dont 
notre  amour  pent  si  bien  disposer  en  sa  faveur,  a  cette  gaite  intarissable,  a  ces 
portes  ouvertes  de  toutes  parts  a  la  joie,  et  fermes  aux  soucis  et  aux  chagrins,  qui 
peut  se  refuser  k  I'idee  qu'il  y  a  dans  le  contentement  deces  etres  si  chers  une  dis- 
pensation de  la  Providence?  Et  si,  comme  I'a  dit  unhomme  celebre  a  tout  age  le 
bouheur  est  ratmosphere  la  plus  favorable  aux  germes  des  vertus  naissantcs,  ne 
semblet-it  pas  que  I'Oronnateur  supreme  a  voulu  preparer  la  moralite  de  I'liomme 
par  la  longue  felicite  de  I'enfant?  "  —  De  V Education  Progressive,  L.  III.  c.  v. 


VOLITIONS    BECOME    ESTIMATIVE    AND    MOKAL.  71 

of  things  takes  place,  which  immediately  leads  to  estimative 
volitions.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  when  the  child  pronounces  a  real 
internal  judgment  on  things  which  are  physically  pleas- 
urable to  his  senses,  because,  the  pleasure  being  derived 
from  the  senses,  there  is  no  need  of  the  understanding  to 
excite  him  to  action.  But,  in  the  case  of  a  pleasure  derived 
from  something  understood,  there  must  be  an  intervening 
operation  of  the  intelligence  in  order  to  produce  it.  Now,  at 
about  six  or  seven  months  old,  we  observe  that  the  child 
begins  to  admire  things  as  beautiful ;  and  therefore  it  is 
certain  that  his  intellect  estimates  things  in  themselves,  and 
his  will  puts  forth  in  consequence  tlie  volitions  which  we 
have  termed  estimative.  Here  morality  once  more  makes 
its  appearance, •and  here  properly  begins  the  practical  esti- 
mation of  objects  as  distinguished  from  the  perception  of 
them ;  while  in  affective  volitions  the  practical  estimation 
of  things  was  one  with  the  first  perception  of  them.^ 

136.  We  see  splendidly  exemplified  in  these  facts  the  dis- 
interestedness which  always  accompanies  a  practical  estimate 
having  justice  for  its  standard.  But  let  us  look  at  the  facts 
more  closely,  and  once  more  we  will  avail  ourselves  of  those 
collected  and  attested  for  us  by  the  able  author  of  the  ' '  Edu- 
cation Progressive,"  whom  we  have  already  so  often  quoted, 
and  to  whose  diligent  observation  and  pregnant  reflections 
we  shall  have  to  refer  to  again  and  again. 

"  Rousseau  has  well  observed  that,  in  certain  dialogues  between 
the  nurse  and  the  child,  the  words  of  the  former  and  the  inarticu- 

1  I  distinguish  estimative  from  appreciative  volitions,  giving  the  former  name 
to  those  volitions  which  judge  a  thing  to  be  good  without  comparing  it  witli  any- 
thing else,  and  the  term  appreciative  volitions  to  those  which  judge  a  thing  to  be 
good  as  compared  with  some  one  or  more  other  things. 

2  The  perception  of  intelligent  beings  precedes,  as  wo  have  said,  the  affective 
volitions.  If  these  were  preceded  by  the  perception  of  entities  not  intelligent, 
they  would  involve  no  morality,  for  a  moral  volition  must  have  its  term  in  an 
intelligence. 


72  ON,  THE   KULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

late  cooing  of  the  latter  have  much  the  same  modulation  of  sound.^ 
Often  the  baby  coos  over  inanimate  things,  which  it  does  not  dis- 
tinguish from  the  animate ;  but,  though  he  may  deceive  himself  in 
seeing  life  where  there  is  none,  he  never  overlooks  it  where  it  is.^ 
Sometimes  his  cooing  is  addressed  to  a  shining  metal  button,  some- 
times to  a  pane  of  glass  reflecting  the  sunlight,  and  seems  to  tell 
them  that  they  are  pretty  and  give  him  pleasure ;  he  expresses  his 
good-will  toward  them ;  sometimes  he  utters  little  cries,  joyful  and 
eager,  as  if  to  attract  their  attention.  Still,  we  have  here,  as  yet, 
no  real  language,  if  we  mean  by  'language'  a  means  voluntarily 
adopted  to  exercise  influence  on  others;  the  child  is  asking  for 
nothing,  he  is  not  calling ;  he  expects  no  result  whatever  from  his 
little  song.  The  infant,  always  in  a  state  of  absolute  dependence, 
possesses  less  than  any  other  living  creature  of  the  same  age  the 
means  of  self-defence,  and  yet  he  already  manifests  the  two  great 
prerogatives  which  are  to  raise  him  so  high  above  other  animals. 
The  faculty  of  denoting  objects  by  conventional  signs  has  already 
been  often  mentioned  as  one  of  these ;  but  there  is  another  equally 
admirable  and  yet  less  noticed,  which  is  developed  long  before  the 
former :  I  mean  the  tendency  so  common  in  the  infant  to  take  an 
interest  in  a  number  of  things  quite  apart  from  its  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  Already,  at  six  months  old,  his  life  is  no  longer  con- 
centred in  himself ;  it  expands  externally,  and  the  mind  begins  to 
recognize  those  wide  relations  which  one  day  will  subject  to  it  the 
material  universe  and  to  busy  itself  with  laying  out  the  lines  within 
which  it  will  ultimately  embrace  all  things.  The  most  intelligent 
among  animals  have  an  extremely  narrow  circle  of  interests :  what 
does  not  serve  to  protect  or  feed  them  is  to  them  as  non-existent ; 
they  love,  but  do  not  admire  ;  they  have  no  curiosity :  the  child,  on 
the  contrary,  takes  delight  in  everything ;  he  has  pleasures  which 
may  be  termed  disinterested,  so  little  do  they  depend  on  the  senses : 
utility  is  nothing  to  him,  while  already  he  feels  beauty;  such  as  it 

1  Emile,  L.  I.  Modulation  or  intonation  is  the  result  of  several  sounds,  and 
yet  presupposes  a  unitive force  combining  them  into  one.  Hence  we  see  how  early 
that  marvellous  force,  so  little  considered  and  almost  ignored  hitherto  by  philoso- 
phers, intervenes  in  the  operations  of  the  animal,  whether  brute  or  rational. 

.  2  It  is,  therefore,  easier  to  the  child  to  conceive  an  animate  than  an  inanimate 
being  ;  let  that  most  remarkable  fact  be  noted.  The  inanimate  being  is  a  mystery  to 
the  intelligence  of  the  cliild ;  the  animate  being  appears  to  him  simple  enough, 


DOGMATIC   FOUNDATION   OF   RELIGIOUS    INSTRUCTION.      73 

is  to  him  \ui  praisos  it,  and  his  eyes  sparkle  with  admiration.  His 
weak  \()i('t'  laist's  a  hynui  of  |)i"aise,  at  a  time  when  he  Icnows 
neither  wlial  will  liurt  nor  wliat  will  benefit  him."^ 

Here  we  have  already  a  sense  of  justice  and  a  true  mo- 
rality. 

CHAPTER    III. 

ON   THE    EDUCATION  AND    INSTRUCTION   OF    THE    CHILD   THROUGH 
THE    TWO    FIRST    PERIODS    OF    LIFE. 

ARTICLE    I. 

ON  RELIGION. 

137.  Christianity  receives  the  child  into  its  loving  arms 
when  he  comes  into  the  world,  and  piously  closes  his  eyes 
when  he  goes  out  of  it. 

The  following  dogmas  of  the  Catholic  Church  ^  are  as  com- 
forting as  they  are  salutary:  1.  Jesus  Christ  saves  men 
througli  an  occult  power,  which  he  exercises  over  their 
minds  for  their  improvement,  and  which  is  called  grace; 
2.  This  grace  is  attached  to  certain  external  rites,  of  which 
the  Catholic  Church  is  the  depositary,  and  which  are  called 
sacraments  ;  3.  The  first  of  these  sacraments  is  baptism, 
through  wdiich  man  is  regenerated^ — that  is,  he  receives  the 
principle  of  a  higher  moral,  or  rather  supernatural,  life  ;  4. 
The  Catholic  Church,  besides  the  power  of  administering 
these  sacraments,  possesses  that  of  blessing  things  and 
persons,  God  adding  his  own  blessing  to  that  of  the 
Church, — i.e.  his  grace  and  favor;   5.  The  Church  prays 

1  L^ Education  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  ii.  It  is  a  fine  and  true  observation  of  the 
same  writer,  that  the  term  joli,  pretty,  with  its  counterpart  wjly,  are  among 
the  first  words  understood  and  made  use  of  by  children. 

2  I  beg  to  refer  the  reader  here  to  the  passage  in  my  Preface  stating  my  dissent 
from  the  Roman  Catholic  creed  of  any  author,  and,request  that  it  may  be  borne  in 
mind  as  applying  equally  to  all  other  portions  of  the  work  enforcing  the  doctrines 
or  practices  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  — Ao/e  of  the  "Translator, 


74  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

ill  the  prayers  of  its  members  when  the  latter,  being  in 
communion  with  the  Church,  pray  in  her  spirit,  and  such 
prayers  are  efficacious ;  6.  God  always  listens  to  prayer, 
and  receives  the  offerings  of  men  of  good-will. 

These  previous  dogmas  being  laid  down,  it  follows  that, 
though  the  child  is  incapable,  during  the  two  first  periods  of 
life,  of  himself  performing  religious  acts,  it  is  the  office  of 
his  parents  to  perform  many  for  him,  that  they  may  ob- 
tain from  God  for  their  child,  already  new-born  through 
baptism,  ever-increasing  grace  through  the  benefits  and 
means  provided  on  earth  for  men  by  the  Saviour. 

Religion,  then,  goes  before  the  child,  and  does  much  for 
him  ere  he  can  do  anything  for  it.  Happy  the  parents  rich 
in  faith  !     Happy  the  child  to  whom  such  parents  are  given  ! 

ARTICLE    II. 

THE  ACTS  OF  THE  WILL  ARE  STRONGER  IN  CHILDHOOD  THAN  IN  ADULT  YEARS. 

138.  It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  child's  will,  like  his 
physical  nature,  is  weak,  and  that  as  he  grows  older  he 
grows  stronger  in  the  exercise  of  his  will. 

This  view  is  the  result  of  considering  only  the  fi'ee  exercise 
of  the  will,  which  is  entirely  deficient  in  the  child,  and  which, 
when  it  has  once  begun,  goes  on  increasing,  so  that  an  ever- 
wider  circle  of  things  is  or  may  be  brought  under  the  do- 
minion of  deliberate  action.  In  the  child,  on  the  contrary, 
the  will  acts  spontaneously  ;  and  it  is  these  spontaneous  acts 
which  we  declare  to  be  more  powerful — that  is,  more  decided 
and  unrestrained  —  in  the  child  than  in  the  developed  man. 
"Desires,  affections,  pains,  pleasures,  all  are  vivid  and 
strongly  marked  in  the  child.  As  the  various  impressions 
and  emotions  are  in  themselves  the  main  instruments  of  the 
child's  development,  so  he  is  endowed  with  a  singular 
eagerness  in  seeking  for  and  multiplying  them  unceasingly. 


NATUKE    OF   VOLITION    IN    INFANCY.  75 

Whatever  affords  a  prospect  of  them  he  delights  m.  If  his 
fancy  is  to  go  out,  he  springs  towards  the  door,  and  the 
mere  sight  of  his  hat  makes  him  quiver  with  joy  from  head 
to  foot.  If  he  is  to  be  taken  out  in  a  carriage,  lie  is  so 
restlessly  impatient  that  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  hold  Mm. 
Motion,  within  him  and  without  him,  is  his  delight."  ^ 

We  cannot  measure  the  degree  of  intensity  of  the  child's 
pleasures  or  volitions,  because  the  measure  of  those  we  feel 
in  ourselves  is  our  consciousness,  which  is  not  formed  in  the 
child,  and  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  us  to  understand  that 
mysterious  condition  of  a  being  feeling  pleasure  and  pain 
without  any  knowledge,  any  consciousness,  of  them.^  Never- 
theless, that  is  the  condition  of  the  lower  animals,  and  very 
often  that  of  human  feeling  also.^ 

139.  Now  there  are  two  reasons  why  the  feelings  and 
affective  volitions  of  children  should  be  so  exceedingly  ar- 
dent and  impetuous.  The  first  is  that,  the  object  of  such 
volitions  being  simple,  the  will  throws  itself  into  them  with 
its  whole  force.     I  have  already  observed  that  the  will  is  in 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  U Education  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  iv. 

2  It  may  be  useful  to  explain  here  that  by  "consciousness"  Rosmini  means  the 
act  of  the  intelligence  recognizing  by  reflection  our  self  as  doing  or  suffering.  "  To 
be  conscious,"  he  says,  "is  to  know  our  act  as  our  own, — that  is,  to  know  the  act 
and  at  the  same  time  to  know  that  we  are  its  authors.  Now,  this  knowledge  we 
cannot  have  except  by  means  of  another  act  by  which  we  reflect  on  what  takes 
place  within  us."  (N'eio  Essay,  No.  1391.)  The  same  applies  to  knowledge  of  a  sen- 
sation as  our  sensation,  and  of  ourselves  as  feeling  it.  It  is  evident  that  this  knowl- 
edge belongs  to  a  much  more  advanced  stage  of  intellectual  development  than  is 
included  by  the  author  under  the  first  and  second  periods  of  childhood.  The  steps 
by  which  it  is  reached  form  the  subject-matter  of  later  portions  of  this  work.  — 
A^ote  of  the  Translator. 

3  The  sagacity  of  Liebnitz  recognized  the  existence  of  a  sense  of  pain  and 
pleasure  without  consciousness  ;  but  he  restricted  this  to  slight  feelings  which  he 
improperly  called  insensible.  We  are  of  opinion  that  the  sense  of  pain  or  pleasure 
may  attain  any  degree  of  intensity,  and  yet  remain  entirely  separated  from  con- 
sciousness. This  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  natural  facts,  to  which,  I  observe, 
no  sufficient  attention  is  paid.  Cousin  and  Galuppi  both  overlook  it,  and  the  latter 
declares  the  subtle  observation  of  Liebnitz  to  be  absolutely  false.  See  The  Phi- 
losophy of  the  Will,  by  Bar.  Pasquale  Galuppi,  Vol.  I.  p.  1,  c.  ii.  n.  19 ;  see  also 
New  Essay,  No.  288  and  foil. 


76  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

its  nature  infinitely  susceptible  and  mobile :  I  must  here 
add  that  its  power  is  greatest  when  it  is  not  divided  and 
dispersed  on  many  objects  which,  by  drawing  it  in  opposite 
directions,  interfere  with  and  neutralize  each  other. 

This  also  gives  the  reason  why  the  common  people  act 
with  more  impetuosity  than  cultivated  persons.  I  have 
especially  observed  that  peasants,  where  they  feel  at  all,  feel 
with  great  intensity,  be  it  pleasure  or  pain.  The  same 
character  of  ardent  and  decided  volitions  is  seen  in  the  na- 
tions of  antiquity  :  they  have  the  same  vivid  life,  enthusiasm, 
passion,  which  we  find  in  children. 

140.  The  second  reason  of  the  vivid  affections  and  voli- 
tions of  children  is,  that  they  tend  directly  to  the  object  per- 
ceived, while  adults  conceive  the  objects  in  the  abstract,  and 
make  the  act  of  the  will  pass,  as  it  were,  through  a  long 
series  of  general  ideas  before  it  arrives  at  the  object  itself. 
But  I  reserve  till  later  on  the  development  of  this  reason, 
which  deserves  fuller  consideration. 

It  is  true  that  the  first  ardent  feelings  and  volitions  of 
children  are  easily  changed  into  contrary  ones ;  but  this 
proves  nothing  against  their  intensity,  but  only  that  they  are 
very  mobile,  and  that  the  transitory  and  ephemeral  nature  of 
their  objects,  which  are  for  the  most  part  very  trifling,  does 
not  admit  of  any  persistent  duration. 

ARTICLE    HI. 

THE  TENDENCY  OF    EDUCATION  IN  EARLY  CHILDHOOD  SHOULD  BE  RATHER  TO 
CULTIVATE  FEELING  AND  VOLITION  THAN  INTELLECT. 

141.  If,  then,  the  feelings  and  volitions  of  children  have 
a  greater  force  and  intensity  the  less  their  intellect  is  de- 
veloped,—  the  child  willing  with  his  whole  being,  and  bend- 
ing all  the  strength  of  his  will  towards  a  few  simple  objects, 
—  it  is  manifest  that  mothers  sliould  take  advantage  of  this 
condition  of  the  infant  mind,  and  attend  at  this  early  stage 
to  the  trainin<^  (^)f  feelinsr  and  will  rather  than  of  reason. 


CONDITIONS    OF    HEALTHY    DEVELOPMENT.  77 

142.  The  mind  of  the  child  should  be  filled  betimes  with 
that  good-will  towards  others  for  which  Nature  has  happily 
formed  it.  This  benevolence,  this  universal  affection,  springs 
up  naturally,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  in  the  atmosphere  of  joy 
and  brightness  which  should  be  maintained  as  much  as 
possible  in  the  child's  mind. 

The  joyousness  of  the  child  should  be  gentle,  habitual, 
serene,  not  fitful  and  wild.  By  preserving  his  placidity,  we 
not  only  incline  his  mind  to  gentleness  and  benevolence,  but 
also  favor  his  intellectual  progress  :  the  latter  requires  for 
its  due  and  orderly  advance  the  calm  and  placid  condition 
in  which  alone  the  child  can  collect  its  attention.  This 
condition  is  the  more  important  the  more  the  child  is  sub- 
ject to  the  distractions  arising  from  the  extreme  mobility  of 
his  organs,  feelings,  and  thoughts.  Mad.  Necker  admirably 
observes  that,  ' '  when  the  attention  of  the  child  seems  cap- 
tivated by  any  object,  care  should  be  taken  not  to  disturb  it. 
Whatever  interests  him  becomes  an  object  of  observation 
and  assists  his  development."^ 

ARTICLE   IV. 

THE  ACTIONS  PRODUCED  BY  THE  ANIMAL  FEELINGS  ARE  CONNECTED  BY  THE 
LAWS  OF  NATURE  :  THE  EARLIEST  VOLITIONS,  AND  THE  INTELLECTUAL 
FEELINGS  CONSEQUENT   UPON  THEM,  ARE  IN  THEMSELVES  DISCONNECTED. 

143.  We  have  described  in  the  "Anthropology"  the 
marvels  of  the  unitive  force  in  the  animal,  —  of  that  agent 
which,  springing  from  the  unity  of  the  subject,  produces 
effects  rivalling  those  of  reason. 

One  of  the  properties  of  this  force  is  to  bring  into  play 
contemporaneously  the  several  powers  of  the  animal,  both 
passive  and  active,  and  to  obtain  from  them  a  single  result. 
Such  are  the  effects  of  the  instinct  of  sympathy,  of  imita- 
tion, and  other  animal  operations,  in  which  the  multiple  are 

1  De  V Education  Progi^essive,  L.  II.  c.  iii. 


78  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

reduced  to  unity,  the  various  to  an  admirable  simplicity. 
By  this  property,  all  the  sensations  and  motions  of  the  animal 
at  each  moment  are  so  wonderfully  co-ordinated,  that  he 
feels  and  does  a  multiplicity  of  things  which  to  him  are  only 
one  thing. 

144.  Now  it  is  true  that  the  operations  of  the  human  un- 
derstanding also  are  endowed  with  a  certain  unity  by  the 
perfect  unity  of  the  sentient,  intelligent  subject ;  it  is  true 
that  the  unitive  force  presides  equally  in  the  domain  of 
sense  as  in  that  of  intelligence,  or  rather  reduces  thes^  two 
orders  into  one,  because  it  is  the  agent  of  a  subject  in  whom 
sensation  and  understanding  equally  have  their  origin.  But 
there  is  a  wide  difference  between  these  operations  of  the 
animal  and  those  of  the  intelligent  being :  the  former,  having 
arrived  at  subjective  unity ^  have  got  all  that  is  possible  to 
them ;  the  latter,  on  the  contrary,  require  besides  objective 
unity  ^  without  which  they  cannot  be  said  to  be  ordered  and 
combined. 

145.  The  reason  of  this  difference  is  that  the  animal  order 
has  no  reference  to  an  object,  and,  when  the  operations  are 
in  unison,  all  is  in  unison.  But  the  intellectual  order  does 
not  consist  in  mere  operations,  but  in  the  possession  of  ob- 
jects not  only  extraneous  to  the  subject,  but  counterposed  to 
it.  It  is  not  enough,  therefore,  that  the  intellectual  opera- 
tions should  be  unified :  the  unity  required  is  that  of  their 
objects ;  and  these,  in  the  second  period  of  childhood,  are 
in  themselves  entirely  unconnected,  the  child  not  having  yet 
thought  of  the  relations  between  them  by  which  they  are 
bound  together  and  harmonized. 

This  observation  appears  to  me  to  deserve  attention  as 
capable  of  throwing  no  little  light  on  the  mode  of  directing 
the  child's  education. 


METHOD   OF   DIRECTING   OBSERVATION.  79 

ARTICLE    V. 

OBSERVATIONS  AND  EXPERIMENTS  THE  CHILD  SHOULD  BE  LED  TO  MAKE. 

146.  The  importance  of  the  above  observation  will  be 
seen  if  we  consider  in  what  consists  the  only  instruction 
which  can  be  given  in  the  second  period  of  childhood,  and 
which  corresponds  to  the  first  order  of  cognitions. 

But,  before  I  treat  of  this  most  elementary  instruction,  I 
must  remark,  once  for  all,  that,  in  laying  down  the  kind  of 
instruction  that  should  be  given  to  the  child  as  correspond- 
ing to  the  first  degree  of  intelligence,  I  do  not  mean  to 
affirm  that  such  instruction  should  be  given  only  during  that 
brief  period  of  life  in  which  cognitions  of  the  first  order  are 
actually  being  formed.  I  desire  merely  to  establish  what  is 
the  instruction  which  may  be  safely  given  at  any,  even  the 
earliest,  period  of  life,  because  it  requires  only  that  the  in- 
tellectual faculties  should  have  reached  their  earliest  stage 
of  development.  This  holds  good  also  in  the  more  advanced 
stages.  Instruction  of  any  order  is  always  fitted  to  the  age 
above  it,  and  only  unfitted  to  the  age  below  it. 

147.  I  say,  then,  that  to  the  disconnected  intellectual 
acts  or  cognitions  of  the  first  order  correspond  observations 
of  sensible  external  things  which  are  equally  disconnected, 
being  as  yet  bound  together  by  no  process  of  reasoning. 

Hence  the  first  grade  of  instruction  consists  in  leading 
the  child  to  use  his  own  senses  in  the  observation  of  exter- 
nal objects,  and  in  making  him  experiment  on  them.  Our 
aim  in  this  is  a  high  one.  It  is,  by  following  Nature  herself, 
to  train  the  child  to  be  an  observer  and  experimentalist^ — to 
direct  his  attention  agreeably,  constantly,  and  judiciously, 
without  ever  forcing  or  disturbing  it. 


80  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

ARTICLE  VI. 

THE  EDUCATOR  SHOULD  REGULATE  THE  PERCEPTIONS  OF  THE  CHILD. 

148.  Nature  herself  leads  the  child  to  observe  everything, 
to  experiment  on  everything ;  but  all  these  experiments  and 
perceptions  are  unconnected  and  desultory.  The  first  office 
of  the  educator,  then,  consists  in  regulating  the  chikVs  obser- 
vations and  experiments  so  as  to  lead  him  to  pe^'cefye  and  to 
perfect  his  perceptions. 

149.  Perception^  which  is  placed  by  Nature  herself  as  the 
foundation  of  the  whole  immense  pyramid  of  human  knowl- 
edge, should  also  be  the  foundation  of  all  human  education. 

Now  perception^  as  we  have  already  said,  is  perfected 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  sensations  which  the  man 
receives  from  the  same  object,  to  the  vividness  of  those 
sensations,  their  order  and  their  associations,  and,  above 
all,  on  the  attention  he  gives  to  them  and  to  the  most  minute 
parts  of  the  object  perceived  (n.  104-120).  Here  is  a  vast 
field  in  which  the  child  should  be  exercised,  and  which  yet 
does  not  exceed  the  first  grade  of  instruction. 

Nature,  having  prepared  this  well-ordered  material  for  the 
infant  understanding  by  the  combinations  and  connections 
given  already  in  the  animal  condition,  herself  teaches  the 
educator  what  he  has  to  do,  i,  e,  to  imitate  her. 

ARTICLE  vn. 

PATIENCE  AND  SAGACITY  REQUIRED  BY  THE  EDUCATOR  FOR  THIS  PURPOSE. 

150.  But  how  great  are  the  patience  and  good  sense  de- 
manded of  the  educator  in  all  this  !  He,  an  adult,  must 
apply  himself  to  things  which  have  lost  their  interest  for 
him,  though  indeed,  if  he  have  the  right  heart  and  mind, 
he  will  soon  recover  a  fresh  and  far  larger  interest  in  them. 
This  is  the  gift  wanting  in  the  majority  of  educators  ;  hence 
the  ill-grace  with  which  they  bend  themselves  to  join  in  the 


INSTINCTIVE    WISDOM    OF   CHILDHOOD.  81 

proceedings  and  experiments  of  children,  too  often  only 
distiu'bing  them  in  their  work  of  placid  observation  and 
experiment,  —  for  childish  play  and  movements,  and  the 
child's  delight  in  them,  may  all  be  reduced  to  observation 
and  experiment,  —  not  understanding  the  wisdom  that  un- 
derlies them,  and  trying  to  turn  their  pupils'  attention  to 
other  objects,  fitted  only  for  adults,  in  which  they  them- 
selves find  pleasure  and  consider  of  importance.  This  fact 
has  often  led  me  to  ponder  and  ask  myself  why  it  was  that 
the  Divine  Master  never  reproved  anything  in  children,  but 
rather  praised  everything  in  them,  while,  to  the  severity  of 
human  wisdom,  that  early  age  seems  so  full  of  frivolity  and 
devoid  of  any  serious  purpose.  Not  so,  apparently,  was  it 
judged  by  Jesus  Christ.  Rather  it  would  seem  that  in  those 
childish  exercises  he  saw  something  very  different  from  mere 
play  and  loss  of  time, — an  intense  activity  of  the  mind, 
eagerly  aspiring  to  know,  to  grasp  the  truth,  by  which 
Vanima  semplicetta  die  sa  nulla  (''the  simple  soul,  igno- 
rant of  all"),  though  created  to  know,  throws  itself  impetu- 
ously into  the  world  of  sense,  to  seize,  in  whatever  way  it 
can,  some  intelligible  notion  of  it,  ceaselessly  observing  and 
experimenting  on  the  objects  presented  to  it  by  the  senses.^ 
It  behoves  us,  then,  with  inexhaustible  patience,  to  follow 
the  child  in  this  most  serious  and  continual  study  of  his 
early  age,  and  to  help  him  by  regulating  it. 

ARTICLE   VIII. 

THE  ORDER  TO  BE  INTRODUCED  IN  THE  PERCEPTIONS  OF  THE  CHILD. 

151.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  determine  here  in  what  order 
sensible  objects  should  be  brought  before  the  child :    it   is 

1  Wliat  I  have  said  here  does  not  prechide  the  fact  of  the  original  disorder  in 
children  which  makes  their  will  infirm  and  their  sensual  jnstincts  powerful.  A 
very  little  observation  of  them  is  sufficient  to  make  manifest  the  truth  as  regards 
the  germ  of  evil  deposited  in  the  new-born  child  taught  in  the  traditional  doctrine 
of  Christianity. 


82  ON   THE   BULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

enough  to  observe  that  it  will  be  well  to  study  some  order, 
and  that  from  such  an  order,  especially  if  well  chosen  and 
used  by  a  judicious  teacher  to  guide  the  child's  perceptions, 
great  advantage  would  be  derived  in  preparing  and  accel- 
erating his  future  development.^  I  will  only  touch  upon 
some  points  which  may  afford,  as  it  seems  to  me,  useful 
indications  to  sagacious  teachers  of  little  children,  whether 
men  or  women. 

152.  The  first  of  these  is,  as  much  as  possible,  to  make 
the  life  of  the  child  regular.  "  When,''  says  Mad.  Necker, 
' '  the  impressions  themselves  recur  continually  in  the  same 
order,  the  most  painful  will  in  time  be  softened,  and  the 
expectation  of  the  pleasant  ones  will  never  be  deceived. 
To  find  themselves  deceived  is  felt  keenly  by  children,  and 
the  source  of  bitter  tears."  ^  This  regularity  of  life  is  of 
the  greatest  advantage  to  children  throughout  their  infancy. 

The  child  should  be  provided  in  abundance  with  objects 
to  look  at,  touch,  examine,  and  experiment  upon,  —  in  a 
word,  to  perceive,  and  perceive  ever  more  and  more  accu- 
rately. The  objects  chosen  should  be  those  which  most 
attract  his  attention,  which  will  also  be  those  which  satisfy 
his  wants,  his  desires,  and  give  him  pleasure  ;  for  it  is  only 
by  these  that  his  attention  is  aroused  (97,  98). 

153.  It  will  be  found  useful  also  to  present  to  him  simple 
objects,  following  a  certain  order,  —  for  example,  the  seven 
colors  of  the  rays  of  light,  one  after  the  other ;  also  wliitc 
and  black  ;  and,  still  better,  the  harmonic  scale  of  colors,  the 
succession  of  which  will  delight  him.^     Let  him  hear,  in  the 

1  It  is  precisely  this  order  which  Froebel  has  worked  out  and  carried  into  prac- 
tice in  his  Kindergarten  system.  He  and  Rosmini,  independently  and  in  total 
ignorance  of  each  other,  based  their  principles  of  education  on  the  laws  of  human 
nature  and  development  ;  but  Froebel  went  on  to  the  complete  practical  applica- 
tion of  these  principles  to  the  education  of  children  from  the  cradle  upwards.  — 
Note  of  the  Translator. 

2  De  V Education  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  iii, 
'  See  Anthropology,  Nos.  443  and  foil. 


ORDER   IN    PRESENTING    OBJECTS.  83 

same  way,  the  seven  primary  notes,  first  in  succession,  then 
by  degrees  in  their  harmonic  intervals  and  chords ;  then  . 
give  him  regular  solids  to  play  with,  to  the  proportions  of 
which,  in  form  and  measurement,  his  eye  and  hand  may 
become  accustomed,  at  the  same  time  that  they  impress 
themselves  on  his  imagination.  Later  on,  but  not  till  much 
later,  the  child  may  be  familiarized  with  more  colors,  more 
sounds,  more  forms  harmoniously  combined,  but  always  by 
degrees,  and  never  passing  on  to  a  new  play  till  he  shows 
weariness  of  the  old.  It  must  be  evident  that,  besides 
other  advantages,  the  reception  of  so  many  well-ordered 
images  into  his  mind  will  both  provide  fitting  material  for 
his  future  reflection,  and  facilitate  the  intellectual  operations 
he  will  soon  be  called  upon  to  undertake,  not  to  mention 
that  his  mind  itself  receives  a  precious  moral  benefit  from 
insensibly  conforming  itself  to  order,  and  being  trained  to 
the  feeling  of  beauty.^ 

1  The  whole  series  of  Froebel's  Kindergarten  "Gifts  "and  "Occupations"  are 
the  practical  development  and  application  of  the  above  pregnant  hints.  —  Note  of 
the  Translator. 


SECTION    III. 

ON    THE    SECOND    ORDER    OF    COGNITIONS,    AND    THE 
CORRESPONDING    EDUCATION. 

CHAPTER    I. 

THIRD    PERIOD    OF    CHILDHOOD. 

154.  The  first  sign  of  intelligence  in  the  child  is  the  smile 
which  marks  the  beginning  of  the  second  period  of  his  life. 

As  the  work  of  the  first  period  of  infancy  is  the  awaken- 
ing to  life,  and  bringing  into  communication,  through  their 
proper  stimuli,  the  infant's  own  senses  with  foreign  bodies, 
so  the  work  to  be  accomplished  in  the  second  period  is,  as 
regards  the  order  of  sense,  to  bring  into  harmony  the  sensa- 
tions of  touch  with  those  of  sight,  and,  in  the  intellectual 
order,  to  give  the  first  impulse  to  the  understanding  by 
means  of  perceptions  and  of  imaginal  ideas.  A  child  does 
not  learn  the  complete  use  of  his  hand,  and  how  to  regulate 
its  movements  with  regard  to  the  objects  he  sees,  till  he  is 
about  eight  months  old ;  and  he  is  nearly  a  year  old  before 
he  tries  his  first  tottering  steps  and  utters  his  first  articulate 
sounds,  —  both  signs  of  the  new  period  which  dawns  with 
the  second  year  of  his  life. 

155.  It  is,  then,  with  language  that  the  third  period  begins. 
To  learn  the  sigiis  of  things  is  indeed  a  new  and  great  step 
in  human  intelligence  ;  the  first  word  which  the  child  under- 
stands and  pronounces  is  an  important  epoch  for  the  whole 
of  life  :  to  this  period  belong  the  cognitions  of  the  second 
order. 

Before  entering  into  these,  I  would  again  remind  the 
reader  that,  as  the  instruction  proper  to  the  first  order  should 


COGNITION    OF   PRIMARY   RELATIONS.  85 

not  cease  with  the  second  period  of  life,  but  be  continued 
progressively,  so  the  instruction  proper  to  the  second  order, 
although  belonging  to  the  third  period,  is  always  useful  and 
often  necessary,  through  all  the  periods  that  follow. 

CHAPTER    11. 

WHAT   ARE    THE    COGNITIONS    OF    THE   SECOND   ORDER. 
ARTICLE    I. 

WHAT  ARE  THE  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  SECOND  ORDER  IN  GENERAL. 

156.  When  the  attention  of  the  child  fixes  itself  upon  the 
cognitions  of  the  first  order,  obtained  during  the  first  period 
of  his  life,  his  thoughts  about  them  are  termed  cognitions  of 
the  second  order.  These  cognitions  consist  in  the  relations 
perceived  to  exist  between  the  cognitions  of  the  previous 
order. 

But  let  it  be  carefully  observed  that  these  relations  are 
primary  and  immediate,  and  not  yet  the  relations  between 
relations. 

In  order,  then,  to  know  which  are  the  cognitions  of  the 
second  order,  we  must  distinguisif*  carefully  the  immediate 
relations  between  the  cognitions  of  the  first  order  from  all 
the  relations  which  are  afterwards  discovered  between  those 
primitive  relations  themselves. 

ARTICLE   11. 

TWO  KINDS  OF  COGNITION  BEYOND  THE  REACH  OF  THE  MIND  AT  A  CER- 
TAIN PERIOD  OF  LIFE, —  THE  ONE  BECAUSE  IT  IS  OF  TOO  HIGH  AN 
ORDER,  THE  OTHER  BECAUSE  IT  DOES  NOT  ATTRACT  THE  ATTENTION, 
WHICH    LACKS   THE    NECESSARY    STIMULUS. 

157.  We  must  here  observe  that  the  cognitions  attained 
in  the  third  period  of  childhood  are  not  all  cognitions  of  the 
second  order ;  for,  although  it  is  impossible  that  the  child 


86  ON    THE   RULING   PrJNCirLE    OF   METHOD. 

should  attain  cognitions  proper  only  to  a  later  period,  yet 
it  is  possible  that  he  should  attain  those  proper  to  a  pre- 
ceding one. 

That  he  cannot  have  cognitions  belonging  to  a  period  of 
life  still  in  the  future,  is  as  evident  as  that  he  cannot  reflect 
upon  thoughts  which  he  has  never  had.  Hence  we  see  clearly 
why  the  cognitions  of  the  second  order  can  never  be  attained 
by  the  child  who  is  not  in  possession  of  those  of  the  first, 
since  the  former  are  only  his  own  reflections  on  the  latter. 

We  shall  understand  how  the  child  in  his  third  period  is 
able  to  attain  cognitions  proper  to  the  preceding  one  and 
grasp  them  clearly,  if  we  bear  well  in  mind  this  principle, 
that  ''the  active  powers  of  man  are  set  in  motion  only  by 
external  stimuli,  and  are  exerted  just  so  far  as  and  no  far- 
ther than  these  have  power  to  excite  them."  It  follows  that 
the  suflficient  reason  of  each  step  of  intellectual  development 
should  be  sought,  not  in  any  supposed  activity  within  the 
child's  mind,  but  in  an  external  impulse.  I  have  shown  in 
.  the  "  Ideology  "  that  it  is  an  error  to  imagine  that  the  child 
has  within  himself  a  motive-power  adequate  to  produce  all 
the  acts  of  which  he  is  capable.  Those  who  hold  this  view 
do  not  observe  nature,  kut  invert  it.  The  following  facts 
will  be  sufficient  to  prove  how  completely  gratuitous  is  their 
assumption.  The  most  pow*erful  of  all  the  faculties  set  in 
motion  in  infancy  is  the  imagination.  If,  then,  there  were 
any  faculty  to  which  independent  action  could  be  attributed, 
it  would  assuredly  be  this  ;  but  the  fact  to  which  I  allude 
proves  the  contrary,  and  constantly  demonstrates  that  the 
childish  imagination,  so  susceptible  of  impressions,  is  in- 
capable of  inventing  anything  of  itself.  "Fortunately," 
says  Mad.  Necker,  "  this  lively  imagination  is  not  creative. 
Children  left  to  themselves  may  be  frightened  by  a  black 
man,  a  chimney-sweeper,  a  mask,  and  remember  them  with 
terror  ;  but  they  seldom  make  to  themselves  chimeras.    Very 


INCITEMENTS   TO   INTELLECTUAL   ACTIVITY.  87 

rarely  will  they  dwell  upon  an  idea  that  has  not  been  sug- 
gested to  them."^ 

158.  Now  the  incitements  which  arouse  the  intellectual 
activity  in  the  first  period  of  infancy  are  no  other  than  the 
primary  physical  ivants,  which  set  in  motion  the  whole  activ- 
ity of  the  human  being  to  endeavor  to  satisfy  them,  includ- 
ing the  intellectual  activity,  which  then  takes  that  first  step 
of  which  alone  it  is  yet  capable.  As  those  wants,  however, 
are  few,  and,  once  satisfied,  demand  nothing  more,  they  do 
not  spur  on  the  human  mind  to  all  the  perceptions  and  im- 
aginations it  is  capable  of,  but  simply  to  those  that  are 
necessary.  For  instance,  the  fundamental  feeling,  and  the 
idea  of  being  in  general,  constitute  material  for  the  intel- 
lectual attention  which  can  never  be  absent ;  and  yet  that 
attention  does  not  fix  upon  it,  and  the  fundamental  feeling 
and  the  idea  of  being  in  general  are  among  the  last,  and  are 
held  to  be  the  most  diflScult,  subjects  which  can  occupy  the 
human  mind.  Why  is  this?  Surely  not  because  any  one 
thought  is  in  itself  more  diflflcult  than  another,  which  there 
is  nothing  to  show ;  but  that  man  reflects  on  these  matters 
very  tardily,  because  only  very  tardily  does  the  stimulus  to  it 
come  to  him  :  for  a  very  long  time  nothing  impels  him  to  it ; 
he  feels  no  want,  no  desire  for  it,  and  never  will  he  make  an 
exertion  without  a  suflficient  reason. 

159.  I  have  already  observed  elsewhere  ^  that,  when  man 
reflects  on  his  previous  reflections,  the  act  of  reflection  may 
concern  itself  with  two  different  things,  —  either  with  the 
objects  of  the  preceding  reflections,  or  with  the  reflections 
themselves,  —  that  is,  with  the  operations  of  the  mind.  Every 
cognition,  then,  presents  a  double  material  for  succeeding 
reflection,  —  the  objects  we  have  learnt  to  know,  and  the 
intellectual  acts  by  which  they  became  known.     But,  though 

1  De  V Education  Progressive,  L.  III.  c.  v. 

2  Trattato  della  Cosaenza  Morale f  "  Treatise  on  the  Moral  Conscience," 
B.  I.  c.  iii. 


88  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

this  double  material  is  given  to  the  mind  at  the  same  time, 
the  reflections  which  it  awakens  on  the  known  objects  seem 
always  to  be  more  easy,  and  are  made  much  earlier  than 
reflections  on  the  processes  by  which  they  are  known.  In 
short,  the  mind  dwells  rather  on  its  own  knowledge  than  on 
itself  as  knowing  and  its  acts  of  cognition,  and,  for  the 
reason  before  given,  that  the  motives  which  impel  it  to  the 
former  are  earlier  and  more  powerful  than  those  which  draw 
its  attention  to  its  own  operations. 

Thence  it  follows  that  the  method  of  teaching  will  reach 
its  perfection  only  when  we  have  arrived  at  determining 
accurately  what  cognitions  are  proper  to  each  period  of 
childhood,  because  only  in  that  period  do  we  find  the 
material  of  them,  together  with  the  sufficient  motive  neces- 
sary for  their  attainment ;  and  what  cognitions  are  proper  to 
the  different  periods,  because  the  motive  to  attain  them  is 
then  first  felt,  although  their  matter  may  have  been  possessed 
much  earlier. 

160.  There  are,  then,  two  kinds  of  development  in  human 
cognitions.  Some  are  not  formed  earlier  because  their 
matter  is  wanting ;  some  because,  though  the  matter  is 
present,  the  mind  wants  the  impulse  necessary  to  fix  its 
attention  upon  it. 

Those  cognitions  of  which  the  matter  is  wanting  are  im- 
possible to  be  formed.  Those  to  which  the  impelling  motive 
is  wanting  are  not  actually  impossible,  but  nevertheless  are 
not  formed  from  the  absence  of  inducement. 

161.  Hence  the  method  of  teaching  will  be  perfect  only 
when,  1.  The  child's  understanding  shall  be  required  to 
perform  only  those  acts  for  which  the  material  has  been 
previously  given  to  him ;  2.  That  no  such  acts  shall  be 
required  of  him  where  the  necessary  motive  is  wanting. 

The  materials  are  given  successively,  and  this  succession 
constitutes  the  successive  orders  of  cognitions.     The  motives 


INCITEMENTS    TO    SECOND    ORDER   OF   COGNITIONS.        89 

are  also  given  in  succession,  and  it  is  these  that  render  pos- 
sible the  cognitions  for  which  the  child  already  possesses  the 
iiuiterials. 

162.  But  let  us  now  return  to  consider  the  cognitions  of 
the  second  order,  and  in  the  first  place  let  us  inquire  what 
moves  the  attention  of  the  human  creature  towards  them, 
premising  that  there  remain  a  number  of  cognitions  of  the 
first  order  which  are  not  acquired  in  the  first  period  of  life, 
and  must  be  acquired  in  later  periods.  Hence  many  of  the 
cognitions  acquired  in  the  second  period  by  the  human  mind 
belong  to  the  first  order. 

ARTICLE   III. 

WHAT  IS   THE    MOTIVE    WHICH    IMPELS    THE    CHILD    TOWARDS    COGNITIONS    OF 
THE  SECOND  ORDER. 

163.  Language,  whether  vocal  or  composed  of  signs  of 
whatever  kind,  gives  the  stimulus  which  impels  and  helps 
the  human  mind  to  attain  cognitions  of  the  second  order. 

Let  us  examine  the  nature  of  this  stimulus.  To  lead  the 
human  mind  to  pass  from  the  first  to  the  second  order  of 
cognitions,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  fix  attention  on  the  first : 
for  thinking  of  the  cognitions  already  attained  does  not 
bring  new  cognitions  but  simply  recalls  the  old,  unless  the 
thought  adds  something  new  to  them  ;  in  other  words,  unless 
it  discovers  the  relations  between  them  which  was  impossible 
to  it  in  the  first  order  of  cognitions. 

Now,  language,  which  the  child  hears  from  those  around 
him,  does  precisely  this  :  — 

1 .  It  moves  the  human  understanding  to  reflect  on  its  first 
cognitions ;  and,  2.  Through  these  reflections,  to  arrive  at 
new  cognitions,  —  i.  e.  those  of  relation,  which  bind  together 
the  things  first  apprehended ;  and  in  this  perception  of  re- 
lations consists  the  second  order  of  cognition. 

164.  We  must  briefly  inquire  whence  comes  this  potency 


90  ON   THE    KULING   PllINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

of  language.  We  must  begin  by  admitting  that  man  receives 
from  Nature  a  predisposition  to  speech.  Whatever  he  feels 
gives  an  impulse  to  the  organs  of  the  voice,  so  that  he,  and 
indeed  the  animal  in  general,  is  instinctively  impelled  to  utter 
sounds.  But  the  knowledge  which  man  acquires  gives  him 
new  feelings,  and  the  sounds  these  impel  him  to  utter  form 
the  material  of  language.^  To  utter  sounds  following  upon 
feelings  is,  therefore,  a  necessity  of  man's  nature,  a  want 
felt  by  him,  although  such  sounds  are  not  yet  speech,  but 
only  the  materials  of  speech. 

Another  natural  predisposition  to  speech  is  given  to  man 
by  sympathy  and  the  instinct  of  imitation,^  which  incline 
him  to  repeat  the  sounds  he  hears,  —  an  inclination  which 
exists,  though  in  lesser  degree,  in  many  of  the  lower  animals 
also.^  But  to  repeat  the  sounds  heard  is  not  to  speak,  but 
only  to  execute  the  material  part  of  speech. 

A  third  predisposition  to  language  springs  from  the  intel- 
lectual development  the  child  receives  in  the  brief  space  of 
its  second  period  of  life.  The  understanding  has  been,  as 
we  have  seen,  brought  into  action  by  the  physical  wants 
which  invoke  its  aid,  as  it  were,  to  satisfy  their  demands. 
It  has  answered  to  the  appeal  and  done  all  that  it  could,  and 
this  all  was  to  perceive^  to  generalizes'^  and  to  icill  the  things 
perceived.  But  the  wants  are  continual,  and  go  on  demand- 
ing continually  the  help  of  the  understanding,  which  is  ever 
ready  to  give  it,  and  now  can  do  more  than  at  first.     Even 

1  See  the  Anthropology,  No.  455  and  foil. 

2  Sympathy  and  the  instinct  of  imitation  are  straitly  bound  together  in  the 
child.  I  have  observed  that  every  passive  faculty  has  its  corresponding  active  one  : 
sympathy,  then,  is  the  passive  faculty,  whose  corresponding  activity  is  the  instinct 
of  imitation.    The  latter  has  been  .explained  in  the  Anthropology,  No.  487  and  foil. 

3  Daniel  13arrington.  Vice-rresident  of  the  Royal  Society,  London,  has  proved 
by  various  experiments  that  the  song  of  birds  is  only  the  repetition  of  what  they 
hear,  and  that,  if  a  young  bird  is  taken  from  the  nest  and  placed  with  birds  of 
another  species,  it  learns  the  song  of  its  new  companions.  —  See  Philosophical 
Transactions,  Yol.  XV.,  and  the  Journal  de  Physique,  Juin,  1774. 

*  Generalization  is  the  faculty  of  the  imaginal  ideas. 


STIMULUS   AFFORDED   BY   LANGUAGE.  91 

in  his  purely  animal  condition,  man,  through  the  synthetic^ 
force,  seeks  to  help  himself  through  whatever  is  at  hand, 
things  or  persons,  that  are  to  him  sources  of  sensation. 
His  intellectual  attention,  thus  turned  to  all  sensible  things 
around  him  in  order  to  make  use  of  them,  fixes  also  upon 
the  language  he  hears,  which  at  first  is  nothing  more  to  him 
than  a  series  of  sensations  reaching:  him  throuojh  his  hear- 
ing.  But  he  very  soon  discovers  that  he  can  derive  greater 
advantages  from  the  use  and  interchange  of  these  sounds, 
and  through  them  get  himself  obeyed — that  is,  helped — by 
the  persons  around  him,  and  he  gives  his  whole  attention  to 
learning  how  to  use  them  so  as  to  attain  his  ends. 

In  this  manner,  language  becomes  a  fresh  stimulus,  occa- 
sion, and  assistance  to  the  child's  intellectual  attention. 

ARTICLE    IV. 

THE    TWO    KINDS    OF    COGNITION   TO  WHICH    LANGUAGE    IMPELS    THE    CHILD'S 
INTELLIGENCE. 

165.  Let  us  see  now  what  are  the  new  cognitions  to  which 
the  child  advances  by  means  of  the  language  he  hears,  and 
which  he  learns  from  those  around  him.^ 

These  cognitions  are  of  two  kinds.  Some  are  cognitions 
of  the  first  order,  which  the  child  could  not  attain  earlier 
because  the  necessary  stimulus  was  wanting  to  rouse  his 
attention  to  them.  Others  are  cognitions  of  the  second 
order,  which  he  could  not  attain  earlier,  because  |iot  only  the 
impulse  but  the  matter  of  them  was  wanting. 

ARTICLE    V. 

WHAT  ARE  THE  COGNITIONS  GAINED  BY  THE  CHILD    THROUGH  LANGUAGE. 

166.  The  child,  by  means  of  the  unitive  force^  first  con- 
nects the  sensation  which  he  receives  from  hearing  a  name 

1  The  marvellous  operation  of  this  force  has  already  been  explained  in  the 
Anthropology,  Nos.  458-483. 

2  I  allude  here  only  to  vocal  language.  The  reader  can  apply  my  reniarlis  to 
all  language,  such  as  signs,  —  those,  for  example,  used  for  the  deaf  and  dumb. 


92  ON   THE   EULING   PRINCIPLE    OE   METHOD. 

pronounced  with  the  object  that  name  signifies,^  so  that  the 
sound  of  the  name  immediately  recalls  to  him  his  perception 
of  the  object,  or  its  idea  in  his  imagination. 

This  fact  demonstrates  that  language  must  give  the  child 
a  greater  aptitude  for  recalling  the  memory  and  idea  of 
things.^  Without  this  help  of  language,  he  could  recall  them 
only  by  their  falling  again  under  his  senses,  or  by  some 
accidental  motion  of  the  fibres  of  his  brain ;  with  it,  the 
sound  of  a  word,  or  the  recollection  of  it,  brings  back  to 
him  the  memory  and  the  idea  of  objects.  Language  thus 
becomes  to  him  a  sort  of  artificial  memory^  and  serves  to 
increase  his  use  of  the  faculty  of  recollection. 

167.  Absent  things,  then,  which  could  only  be  recalled  to 
the  child's  mind  by  accident,  are  easily  recalled  by  the  use 
of  language,  and  it  would  seem  that  only  by  that  use  could 
he  form  the  conception  of  the  absence  of  things.  For  his 
recollection  of  perceptions  shows  him  things  in  the  time  and 
place  in  which  he  perceived  them,  and  therefore  as  present ; 
the   imaginal  ideas  ^  show  him  the  thing  as  possible  ;  but 

1  The  union  in  one  feeling  of  the  visible  perception  with  the  sound  causes  the 
child  when  he  receives  the  former  to  utter  the  latter,  because,  1.  The  object  per- 
ceived; 2.  The  sound;  and,  3.  The  act  of  pronouncing  the  sound,  become  to  him  in- 
separable things.  Mad.  Necker  rightly  observes:  *'  The  child,  in  pronouncing  his 
first  words,  takes  pleasure  in  exercising  a  special  faculty.  If  he  sees  a  dog  pass  in 
the  street  he  utters  its  name,  as  he  has  arrived  at  learning  it,  but  he  has  no  other 
motive  in  the  utterance  than  the  pleasure  he  takes  in  it.  He  is  moved  neither  by 
fear  nor  hope.  If  he  were  afraid  of  the  dog,  he  would  cry;  if  he  wanted  it,  he 
would  throw  Himself  towards  it  with  cries  of  impatience;  but  he  only  names  it 
in  a  state  of  perfect  calm."  {U Education  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  ii.)  The  reason 
of  the  fact  observed  by  Mad.  Necker  is  that  the  child  pronounces  the  word  dog  so 
soon  as  he  sees  the  dog,  to  complete  in  himself  the  one  feeling  composed  of  the 
three  elements  above  mentioned,  as  I  have  explained  at  length  in  the  Anthro- 
pology. 

2  "  Children,"  observes  Miss  Edgeworth,  "  help  themselves,  by  certain  move- 
ments, to  recall  the  ideas  they  acquired  in  association  with  those  movements."  This 
subtle  observation  shows  afresh  how  Nature  herself  inclines  the  child  to  connect 
ideas  with  sensible  things,  and  proves  the  existence  of  the  wiitive  force  pointed  out 
by  me  in  both  animals  and  man. 

3  Rosmini  uses  the  term  " imaginal  ideas"  to  denote  the  images  produced  in  the 
mind  of  things  actually  seen.  There  will,  therefore,  be  as  many  imaginal  ideas 
as  there  have  been  things  seen.  —  Note  of  the  Translator. 


STIMULUS   AFFORDED   BY   LANGUAGE,   CONTINUED.       93 

language  teaches  him,  in  addition,  that  the  thing  he  had  per- 
ceived still  exists  though  it  be  not  present.  He  becomes 
aware  that  a  thing  can  exist,  whether  it  be  present  to  his 
senses  or  not,  in  a  place  where  it  does  not  fall  under  his 
senses.  This  is  already  a  great  step  for  him  to  have  taken, 
since  by  this  operation  of  his  mind  he  perceives  that  the 
substance  of  the  object  is,  not  its  action  upon  him,  but 
something  that  subsists,  although  not  felt  by  him.^ 

This  step  also  impels  the  mind  towards  the  knowledge  of 
invisible  things. 

Moreover,  as  the  number  of  absent  things  is  infinitely 
greater  than  that  of  present  ones,  if  we  consider  language 
under  this  aspect  only,  we  see  that  it  opens  a  way  for  the 
child  to  more  than  double  his  first  acquisitions  of  knowledge. 

ARTICLE   VI. 

WHAT    ARE   THE    COGNITIONS    OF    THE    SECOND    ORDER    GIVEN   TO    THE    CHILD 
THROUGH  LANGUAGE. 

168.  A  still  greater  step  is  taken  when,  by  the  help  of 
language,  the  child  passes  to  cognitions  of  the  second  order. 
To  trace  how  this  takes  place,  and  ascertain  the  different 
kinds  of  cognition  of  the  second  order,  we  must  analyze  the 
process  by  which  the  child  arrives  at  expressing  his  cogni- 
tions in  words. 

In  the  first  instance,  the  word  is  only  a  sensation  which  he 
connects  with  certain  images  through  the  second  function  of 
the  unitive  force^^  whence  with  the  recurrence  of  the  sensa- 
tion recur  also  to  his  mind  the  associated  images.  After- 
wards the  process  is  reversed,  and  the  child  having  previously 
the  image  and  the  sound,  when  the  sensation  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  image  is  revived  he  is  carried  on  to  complete 

1  The  absent  object  is  not,  however,  conceived  without  any  relation  to  sense. 
See  Principii  della  Scienza  Morale,  "  Principles  of  Moral  Science,"  ch.  ii. 

2  This  second  function  is  that  of  "  associating  sensations  and  images."  See  the 
Anthropology,  No.  463  and  foil. 


94  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

it  by  pronouncing  the  sound  which  forms  its  other  part,  in 
virtue  of  the  fourth  function  of  the  unitive  force. -^ 

In  the  third  place,  the  child,  who  gets  help  thro  gh  his 
cries,  blends  into  one  the  active  feeling  of  his  cry  and  the 
passive  sensation  of  the  help  it  brings,  and  thus  he  uses  it 
instinctively,  the  cry  becoming  to  him  one  with  the  pleasant 
sensations  which  immediately  follow  it,  —  a  union  effected  in 
every  animal  by  the  above-mentioned  fourth  function  of  the 
unitive  force. 

In  these  three  processes  the  animal  nature  alone  is  brought 
into  play. 

169.  Let  us  now  go  on  to  consider  speech  as  the  stimulus 
to  intellectual  processes. 

The  spoken  word  is  a  sensation  which  very  soon  becomes 
associated  with  the  intellectual  perception  in  presence  of 
which  it  is  uttered,  and  serves  to  sharpen  attention  and 
make  the  perception  more  vivid.  At  this  stage  the  word  is 
a  part  of  the  complex  perception  itself,  —  that  is,  of  a  percep- 
tion accompanied  by  several  sensations.  Here  intelligence 
comes  into  play,  but  as  yet  it  is  only  that  of  the  second 
order ;  the  word  is  perceived  only  as  a  sensible  element  of 
the  perception. 

Words  are  at  first  connected  with  the  memory  of  percep- 
tions^ and  serve,  as  we  have  seen,  to  recall  the  thought  of 
absent  objects  which  have  been  perceived :  this  still  brings 
into  play  only  the  first  grade  of  intelligence,  but  at  a  more 
advanced  stage.  The  word  here  is  a  sensation^  which  recalls 
a  perception  in  which  the  word  itself  has  no  part,  and  soon 
becomes  in  addition  a  perception  which  recalls  another  per- 
ception. 

In  the  second  place,  the  word  is  associated  with  imaginal 

1  The  fourth  function  of  the  unitive  force  is  that  of  "forming  one  single 
feeling  out  of  several  feelings  partly  passive,  partly  active."  See  the  Anthro- 
pology, No.  479  and  foil. 


ASSOCIATIONS   INDUCED    BY   WORDS.  95 

ideas,  and  thus  serves  to  recall  the  latter.  In  this  case,  the 
word  is  a  sensation  and  also  a  perception,  which  impels  the 
child  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  associated  idea,  and  that  so 
i-apidly  and  simultaneously  that  he  seems  to  see  the  idea  in 
the  word  the  moment  he  hears  the  latter. 

The  words  which  recall  to  the  mind  either  past  perceptions 
or  imaginal  ideas  cannot  be  said  to  impel  the  understanding 
to  the  reflections  which  constitute  a  new  order  of  cognitions, 
but  only  to  those  in  which  the  understanding  reviews  its  cog- 
nitions of  the  previous  order.  It  is  true  that,  as  a  relation 
exists  between  the  word  and  the  imaginal  idea  or  the  memory 
of  the  past  perceptions,  that  relation  belongs  to  cognitions 
of  the  second  order,  which  we  have  defined  to  be  "  cogni- 
tions having  for  their  object  the  relations  between  cognitions 
of  the  first  order."  But  it  should  be  observed  that  the  word 
may  recall  to  us  the  imaginal  idea  without  our  conceiving 
intellectually  the  relation  between  it  and  the  idea :  it  is 
enough  that  there  should  be  a  physicial  nexus  causing  the 
attention,  so  soon  as  it  is  struck  by  the  sound,  to  turn  to 
the  idea. 

170.  There  is  yet  a  third  process  which  the  word  induces 
in  the  mind,  without,  however,  forming  in  the  latter  cogni- 
tions of  the  second  order.  The  process  of  which  I  speak 
resembles  abstraction  in  its  effects,  but  is  not  abstraction, 
though  leading  to  it  almost  immediately.  When  the  child 
hears  a  word  used  as  a  name  for  several  similar  things,  —  for 
instance,  "  horse,"  each  time  that  such  an  animal  passes,  — he 
does  not  at  once  abstract  the  common  qualities  of  the  horse 
(which  yet  he  is  capable  of  remembering)  ;  but  he  believes 
that  the  horse  then  passing  is  the  same  as  the  one  he  saw 
before  and  heard  named  "horse,"  because  he  has  not  yet 
observed  the  difference  between  the  one  he  sees  and  the 
one  he  has  seen.  The  w^oi-d  recalls  to  him  the  perception, 
together  with  the  imaginal  idea  of  the  horse  seen  before,  and 


96  ON   THE    lUTLING   PRINCIPLE    OP   METHOD. 

which  he  takes  to  be  the  same.^  Unless,  therefore,  we  care- 
fully examine  what  is  passing  in  the  mind  of  the  child  when, 
each  time  that  a  horse  passes,  he  pronounces  the  word 
"  horse,"  we  shall  assume  that  he  has  already  abstracted  the 
species  horse  from  the  individual  horse.  In  this,  however, 
we  should  err  until  we  have  ascertained  that  the  child  had 
taken  notice  of  some  differences  between  the  horses  he  has 
seen  successively,  by  which  he  has  learnt  that  the  one  is  not 
identical  with  the  other,  but  that  both  the  one  and  the  other 
are  horses,  —  ^.  e,  that  both  have  something  in  which  they  are 
alike,  and  therefore  have  a  like  name.^ 

§  1. — Abstractions  formed  immediately  from  sensible  things. 

171.  We  have  found  that  words  fulfil  three  functions  be- 
fore producing  by  their  use  cognitions  of  the  second  order. 

1  Here  again  comes  into  play  the  unitive  force,  not  of  the  mere  sensitive  subject 
only,  but  of  the  sensitive  intelligent  subject.  The  work  of  M.  Maine  de  Blran, 
entitled  Influence  de  V Habitude  sur  la  Faculte  de  Penser,  will  assist  us  here.  The 
author  observes  with  justice  that  a  quality  which  vividly  strikes  the  child  may 
become  "such  an  habitual  sign  as  to  carry  with  it  mechanically  the  apparition  of 
all  associated  impressions  or  qualities."  I,  however,  should  not  say  inechanically, 
but  in  accordance  with  the  laws  proper  to  the  anim^,!.  On  this  first  effect  of  habit 
is  founded,  according  to  Maine  de  Biran,  "  the  prompt  and  natural  conversion  of 
individual  names  into  general  words  and  terms." 

2  The  inclination  and  the  faculty  to  revive  in  imagination  the  images  formerly 
seen  are  always  somewhat  difficult  to  explain.  The  difficulty  in  this  fact,  which 
takes  place  completely  within  the  limits  of  the  animal  nature,  consists  in  this,  that 
the  images  revived  are  not  numerically  the  same  as  the  past  ones,  but  only  equiva- 
lent to  them.  How,  then,  can  the  animal  tend  towards  the  revival  of  past  images?  . 
The  answer  must  surely  be  that  the  former  images  have  left  a  certain  trace  in  the 
animal  retentiveness,  and  that  the  inclination  to  revive  them  resolves  itself  into 
the  inclination  to  complete  the  trace  thus  left.  This  presupposes  the  law  we  have 
pointed  out  elsewhere,  that  a  pleasurable  state  of  the  animal,  when  it  has  passed 
away,  leaves  an  inclination  towards  an  equivalent  state.  But,  again,  this  state, 
though  equivalent  to  the  first,  is  not  numerically  the  first :  how,  then,  can  there  be 
a  tendency  to  a  new  state,  or  how  can  the  animal  feel  the  equivalence  between  two 
states  numerically  distinct  ?  To  throw  light  on  this  mystery,  we  must  fall  back  on 
the  doctrine  regarding  the  identity  of  the  animal  and  his  fundamental  feeling  at 
dilYerent  times,  —  a  doctrine  which  manifestly  establishes  that  the  animal  principle 
is  altogether  outside  the  laws  of  time,  to  which  oidy  its  modifications  are  subject. 
This  is  a  matter  worthy  of  meditation  by  the  profoundest  metaphysicians.  See  the 
Anthroj)ology i  No.  303  and  foil.,  and  789  and  foil. 


USE    OF   WORDS   TO   FORM   ABSTRACTIONS.  97 

To  produce  these,  and  principally  abstraction,  is  their  fourth 
office,  which  must  be  carefully  analyzed. 

Only  proper  names  as  accepted  by  mankind  are  signs  of 
perceptions,  or  of  the  memory  of  former  perceptions :  all 
other  words  are  signs  of  universals.  Nevertheless,  the 
demonstrative  pronouns  tliis^  tliat^  etc.,  joined  to  the  com- 
mon name,  apply  or  restrict  it  to  signify  perceptions,  —  ^.  e. 
real  ol)jects  perceived. 

If  we  examine  the  rest  of  the  words  besides  proper  names 
of  which  language  is  composed,  we  shall  not  find  a  single  one 
intended  or  applicable  to  signify  imaginal  ideas.  When, 
therefore,  we  said  that  one  of  the  first  uses  the  child  makes 
of  words  is  to  recall  such  ideas  to  his  mind,  we  spoke  only 
of  the  childish  use,  differing  from  that  of  a  later  age,  because 
the  child  does  not  yet  know  the  value  of  the  common  use  of 
the  word. 

172.  That  this  is  the  case  will  appear  manifest  if  we 
observe  how  absolutely  useless  it  would  be  to  invent  w^ords 
to  express  imaginal  ideas.  For  the  latter  are  infinite,  and 
differ  from  each  other  by  distinctions  so  minute  that  it  is 
of  no  importance  to  men  to  note  them,  and  would,  on  the 
contrary,  be  a  great  hindrance  to  quickness  of  thought  or 
speech.  In  the  first  place,  the  perceptions  of  a  thing  vary 
in  the  man  himself  according  as  he  perceives  more  or  less 
of  it ;  and  as  the  perceptions  so  also  will  the  images  vary, 
and  the  imaginal  ideas  which  rest  on  the  images.  It  would, 
therefore,  be  impossible  to  have  a  word  for  each  of  these 
ideas.  In  the  second  place,  such  ideas  vary  in  different  men  ; 
hence,  if  a  man  wanted  to  express  by  a  word  his  own  imaginal 
idea,  he  could  not  be  sure  of  being  iinderstood  by  others 
who  have  not  that  particular  idea.  In  the  third  place,  it  is 
enough  to  consider  what  Plato  says,  ''  that  every  real  and 
finite  thing  is  continually  undergoing  cliange,  destruction,  and 
regeneration."     Take,  for  example,  a  horse  :  he  is  changing 


98  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OE   METHOD. 

every  hour  he  lives ;  he  riiust,  then,  excite  a  new  imaginal 
idea.  It  would  be  enough  that  a  single  patch  of  his  coat 
should  turn  gray,  or  his  ears  grow  the  tenth  of  an  inch  in 
length,  to  make  a  new  name  necessary  for  his  type,  for  the 
complete  idea  of  him.  It  is,  then,  impossible  for  words  to 
signify  such  imaginal  or  complete  ideas,  although  the  child, 
who  has  perhaps  no  others  in  his  mind,  revives  them  by 
the  sound  of  the  words  through  the  analogy  they  have  with 
the  abstract  ideas  which  the  words  are  used  to  express  by 
mankind  in  general. 

173.  T\iQfull  idea  not  being  signified  by  words,  it  remains 
unobserved,  and  philosophers  themselves  jump  from  percep- 
tions to  abstract  ideas  w^ithout  attending  to  the  full  ideas 
which  stand  between,  as  we  have  pointed  out.^ 

We  must,  then,  bear  in  mind  that  language  contains  not 
a  single  word  (except  proper  names,  demonstrative  pronouns, 
and  certain  adverbs  of  time  and  place)  which  does  not  ex- 
press an  abstract  idea.^  In  talking  to  a  child,  then,  we  are 
continually  drawing  the  attention,  not  to  a  universal  only, 
but  to  an  abstraction;  and  it  is  this  operation,  perfectly  new 
to  him,  which  leads  him  to  cognitions  of  the  second  order, 
and  which  we  must  investigate  with  the  greatest  care. 

When  the  child  hears  the  house-dog  called  ''dog  "  again  and 
again,  and  hears  it  equally  called  a  ''dog"  when  small  and 

1  New  Essay,  No.  761  and  foil.  Let  those  who  pretend  that  the  natural  prog- 
ress of  the  human  mind  is,  step  by  step,  from  the  particular  to  the  general,  duly 
consider  this  fact.  The  imaginal  ideas,  which  are  the  earliest  and  the  nearest  to 
the  particular  perceptions,  do  not  in  any  degree  arrest  the  intellectual  attention 
of  man,  who  passes  on  directly  to  abstract  ideas,  which  alone  he  expresses  in 
words  and  alone  makes  the  object  of  his  discourse.  This  fact  might  disabuse  all 
bona  fide  sensationists  if  they  observed  it  properly.  I  do  not  know  a  single  modern 
philosopher  who  has  recognized  the  universality  of  imaginal  ideas,  and,  when  I 
have  succeeded  in  making  any  one  aware  of  their  existence,  he  has  rejoiced  over 
it  as  a  discoverv,  Plato,  among  the  ancients,  seems  to  have  been  aware  of  them, 
and  I  have  used  this  conjecture  to  interpret  some  passages  of  his  concerning 
species  which  seem  to  me  inexplicable  without  it. 

2  It  is  necessary  always  to  bear  in  mind  the  difference  between  abstraction  and 
generalization,  of  which  we  have  spoken  in  the  New  Essay,  No.  490  and  foil. 


FIRST  PROCESS  OF  ABSTRACTION.  99 

lapping  milk  and  when  grown  bigger  and  eating  bread,  when 
it  has  its  ears  and  tail  and  when  both  are  cut  off,  and  hears 
this  one  word  ''  dog  "  applied  to  all  the  street-dogs,  whether 
large  or  small,  rough  or  smooth,  standing  still  or  running, 
quiet  or  angry,  there  comes  a  time  when  his  mind  fixes  upon 
the  one  thing  for  which  that  common  name  of  ''dog"  is 
given  to  all.  In  other  words,  by  dint  of  hearing  the  same 
term  applied  so  diversely,  he  abstracts  that  which  forms 
the  common  element  in  dogs  (the  dog-nature) ,  and  uses  that 
common  element  (which  is  an  abstraction)  as  the  mark  to 
distinguish  the  objects  to  which  the  name  "  dog"  should  be 
given. 

174.  Not  that  the  child  can  yet  account  to  himself  for  this 
mental  process,  or  that  he  has  formed  any  just  conception  of 
the  distinctive  note  of  dogs.  His  mind  has  worked  to  that 
point  without  his  reflecting  upon  it,  and  has  formed  a  con- 
ception of  some  kind  of  what  distinguishes  the  species  dog 
from  other  species  of  animals,  or  at  least  of  that  which  he 
believes  to  be  the  distinctiou  between  them. 

The  mistakes  he  may  have  fallen  into  regarding  the  dis- 
tinctive note  of  the  dog  in  no  way  affect  the  truth  of  what 
we  have  been  saying,  nor  alter  the  fact  that  he  has  really 
gone  through  the  mental  process  of  abstraction,  although  the 
element  he  has  abstracted  does  not  exist,  or  exists  only  in 
his  imagination,  or  is  not  the  element  which  constitutes  the 
nature  of  tlie  dog.  Indeed,  the  child  never  begins  by  ab- 
stracting precisely  the  element  to  which,  by  common  usage, 
the  word  is  affixed,  but  always  abstracts  a  yet  more  common 
or  generic  element.-^ 

1  It  is  said  that  Prince  Lee  Boo  of  the  Pelew  Islands.,  having  come  to  Macao  and 
seen  a  horse,  immediately  called  it  a  dog,  an  animal  already  known  to  him.  This 
fact  demonstrates  that  he  comprehended  horses  in  the  species  dog, — i.e. that  he 
attributed  the  term  dog  to  several  species,  to  a  whole  genus.  His  mistake  must 
have  been  quickly  corrected,  whether  by  himself  through  attending  to  the  immense 
differences  between  dogs  and  horses,  and  thus  seeing  that,  for  the  convenience  of 


100  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

The  child  corrects  the  mistake  he  has  fallen  into,  when  the 
discovery  of  new  differences  between  things  makes  him  per- 
ceive that  he  has  given  to  a  word  a  wider  meaning  than  other 
people:  he  then  restricts  the  meaning,  at  the  same  time  .re- 
stricting the  abstraction  he  had  expressed  by  it,  and  thus 
determining  its  characteristic  or  abstract  element  more  pre- 
cisely, reducing  it  from  the  general  to  the  specific,  or  from 
a  larger  to  a  smaller  genus. 

175.  We  must,  therefore,  assure  ourselves  that  the  child 
has  arrived  in  the  use  of  words  at  recognizing  that  there  is 
an  element  common  to  several  things,  and  that  he  adopts 
that  element,  whatever  it  be,  as  the  sign  ])y  which  the  things 
to  which  the  word  is  applicable  are  distinguished.  Then 
only  can  he  be  said  to  have  performed  the  first  process  of 
abstraction,  which  forms  the  cognitions  of  the  second  order. 

speech,  it  was  necessary  to  invent  two  names  as  signs  of  these  two  species,  instead 
of  having  one  name  whicli  was  only  the  sign  of  a  genus  ;  or  whether  (which  was  the 
easier  way)  this  reflection  wiis  suggested  to  him  by  others,  teaching  him  that  they 
reserved  the  word  dog  to  signify  one  species,  and  horse  to  signify  another,  and  the 
name  quadriq^cd.,  or  a  suuilar  one,  to  signify  Jlie  genus.  A  similar  error  of  excessive 
abstraction  is  that  pointed  out  by  Cook,  and  referred  to  by  me  in  the  New  Essay, 
n.  155.  Now  this  same  fact  observed  in  savages  is  observable  also  in  children  when 
learning  to  speak.  They  always  err  by  attributing  to  words  too  general  a  meaning, 
because  their  minds  are  naturally  more  inclined  to  the  general  than  the  specific. 
"  I  have  seen,"  says  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  "  a  child  who  called  all  fruit — plums, 
cherries,  currants,  grapes,  etc. — alike  apricots;  another  gave  the  same  name  to 
two  little  girls  dressed  alike."  {De  V Education  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  vi.)  I  have 
observed  the  same  thing  in  a  little  girl,  and  referred  to  it  in  the  Restoration  of 
Philosophg,  etc.,  B.  II.  c.  xxxi.  Some  think  they  can  explain  this  fact  by  attrib- 
uting it  to  the  poverty  of  language  in  the  child  and  the  savage  ;  and  undoubtedly 
it  does  spring  from  poverty  of  language.  But  why  should  this  poverty  determine 
the  mind  to  attribute  to  known  words  a  generic  signification  rather  than  to  invent 
a  new  word,  or  at  least  to  acknowledge  ignorance  of  the  name  of  tliat  new  thing  ? 
Why  does  the  mind  tend  to  believe  that,  with  the  few  words  it  possesses,  it  can  sig- 
nify all  things,  instead  of  taking  them  rather  as  words  expressing  a  few  individual, 
or  at  any  rate,  specific  things  ?  Does  not  this  fact  make  it  clear  that  it  is  the  nat- 
ural tendency  of  the  mind  .which  leads  it  to  put  into  the  meaning  of  words  the 
widest  generic  conception  it  can?  Certaiidy  it  could  not  see  in  them  a  very  gen- 
eral conception  if  the  multitude  of  words  forced  upon  it  the  multitude  of  specific 
differences  in  things.  The  mental  processes,  then,  of  those  who  have  a  poor  vocab- 
ulary, show  that  in  man  the  indeterminate  and  general  precedes  the  less  general 
and  better  determined. 


USE    OF   COMMON   NAMES.       '  '  '       '  10} 

If  several  horses  are  present,  and  he  pi^/f]s  to  thcni  rtP  tl'e 
name  horse,  it  is  certain  that  he  has  arrived  at  this  ab- 
straction, for  he  cannot  take  the  one  animal  for  the  other. 

If  he  gives  the  same  name  to  things  superficially  presented 
to  him,  but  which  are  utterly  unlike,  it  is  equally  certain  that 
his  mind  has  arrived  at  abstracting  ;  for  it  is  not  possible 
that  he  should  take  one  of  them  for  the  other,  and  believe 
those  different  things  to  be  one  and  the  same  thing :  he  rec- 
ognizes, then,  the  plurality  of  individuals,  and  yet  the  iden- 
tity of  some  one  thing  in  all  which  induces  him  to  give  them 
the  same  name. 

In  the  same  way,  the  plural  names  given  to  things  show 
that  his  mind  has  arrived  at  the  process  of  abstraction.^ 

176.  In  that  wonderful  operation,  then,  to  which  the 
mind  is  impelled  by  its  need  of  understanding,  and  in  which 
it  is  assisted  by  the  contemporaneous  sound  of  the  word 
''dog,"  for  instance,  and  the  presence  of  dogs,  and  by  the 
action  of  the  speakers,  the  child  proceeds  as  follows:  — 

(1)  In  the  multitude  of  ima^inal  ideas  which  he  has  formed 
in  seeing  and  hearing  so  many  and  such  different  dogs,  subject 
to  so  many  modifications  (each  different  dog  correspond- 
ing to  an  imaginal  idea),  he  altogether  neglects  the  differ- 

1  Reid  also  gives  it  as  a  sign  by  which  to  recognize  that  the  child  has  arrived  at 
forming  abstractions  when  it  speaks  of  having  two  brothers  or  two  sisters.  «'  From 
the  instant,"  he  says,  "  that  it  uses  the  plui*al,  it  must  have  general  ideas,  since  no 
individual  has  a  plural."  (Essay  on  the  Intellectual  Powers  of  Man,  c.  v.)  These 
latter  words  prove  that  Reid  did  not  imderstand  the  real  cause  of  the  phenomenon, 
and  that  he  confounds  the  collective  with  the  abstract.  The  individual  cannot  be 
(  ollective,  cannot  be  plural ;  but  may  be  abstract,  may  be  miiversal.  When  I 
say  man  or  a  man,  I  speak  of  an  abstract  and  universal  individual.  My  reason,  then, 
for  adducing  the  use  of  the  plural,  as  a  sign  that  the  child  has  arrived  at  abstrac 
tion,  differs  from  Reid's.  I  hold  that  the  use  of  the  plural,  by  one  who  expresses 
and  understands  it,  is  a  sign  of  the  power  of  abstraction,  not  because  he  expresses 
by  it  a  collection  of  individuals,  but  because  it  includes  the  observation  that  tli( 
one  individual  is  not  the  other  individual,  and  yet  that  the  same  name  is  suitable  tc 
both,  which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  it  expresses  a  common  characteristic.  Henje 
those  who  differ  from  the  Scotch  philosopher  on  this  pomt  leave  my  view  un 
touched. 


1G,2  ()N'   lMIK  ;KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

cnces..  i.iUiX  concentrates  his  attention  on  the  hkeness  com- 
mon to  them  all. 

(2)  This  common  element  having  become  the  exclusive 
object  of  his  thought,  he  uses  it  as  a  sign  by  which  to  rec- 
ognize the  object  he  has  to  remember  every  time  he  hears 
the  word  "  dog."  ^ 

177.  And  let  it  be  noted  that  he  does  not  connect  the 
sound  dog  with  that  element  only,  but  with  all  the  objects  in 
which  he  recognizes  that  element. 

That  element  has  been  abstracted  in  the  child's  mind,  but 
is  not  yet  named.  The  word  dog  does  not  indicate  only  that 
abstraction,  but  includes  all  the  objects  in  which  that  ab- 
straction resides :  it  cannot  be  understood  unless  the  mind 
has  formed  the  abstraction  which  it  presupposes  and  by 
which  it  is  determined,  and  yet  "  dog"  is  not  an  abstract  but 
a  common  name. 

Hence  it  appears  that  abstractions  assume  two  forms  in 
the  mind,  —  the  one  unnamed^  which  is  the  foundation  of  the 
common  name  ;  the  other  named  by  means  of  abstract  names. 
To   use   the  word  wliite  substantively  is  to  use  a  common 

1  I  have  again  and  again  aflBrmed  that  the  attention  of  the  human  mind,  which 
does  not  act  of  itself,  but  only  when  excited  from  without,  would  never  fix  itself 
on  an  abstract  quality  of  objects  without  the  help  of  words,  which  the  child  gets 
from  the  society  in  the  midst  of  which  he  lives.  It  follows  that  man  could  not  have 
invented  that  part  of  language  which  expresses  abstractions, — by  far  the  larger 
part  of  it  and  very  nearly  the  whole.  I  have  supported  this  assertion  by  arguments 
which  I  believe  to  be  irrefutable.  But  the  experiments  I  have  made  on  children 
have  furnished  me  with  a  new  one,  and  these  experiments  are  corroborated  by  a 
mother  who  is  also  a  sagacious  and  diligent  observer.  I  mean  Mad.  Necker  de 
Saussure.  She  attests  the  followuig  most  true  observation:  "As  it  is  too  often  said 
that  languages  have  sprung  from  wants,  and  are  only  perfected  cries,  I  am  in  a 
position  to  certify  that,  at  least  as  regards  children,  this  is  not  the  case.  I  will 
add  that  the  child  does  not  invent  words,  but  oidy  repeats,  as  best  he  can,  those  he 
hears  spoken.  Neither  does  he  call  an  animal  to  him  by  his  cries,  unless  the  ex- 
ample has  been  set  to  him.  Hence  spoken  language,  in  its  most  unformed  stage, 
is  the  result  of  imitation  and  teaching,  and  always  seems  to  have  something  of 
a  foreign  origin."  {U Education  Progressive,  T.  I.,  L.  II.  c.  ii.)  This  single  ob- 
servation made  on  the  child  disposes  of  all  the  romances  of  Bonnet,  Condillac, 
Soave,  and  others,  relating  the  imaginary  story  of  the  two  infants  lost  in  a  forest 
and  composing  a  language. 


ABSTRACTION    OF   ACCIDENTAL    QUALITIES.  103 

name,  because  the  siil)staiitive  white  means  only  "a  white 
object"  :  the  whiteness  is  united  to  the  object ;  but  the  mind 
has  the  abstract  idea  of  whiteness,  and  uses  it  to  understand 
the  word  white.  To  say  whiteness  is  to  use  an  abstract  name 
expressing  only  that  precise  quality  of  the  object  considered 
by  itself,  and  having  no  reference  to  the  object  in  which 
whiteness  is  seen. 

The  term  white  is,  therefore,  earlier  understood  by  the 
child  than  ivhiteness,  although  he  learns  to  understand  the 
second  very  soon  after  the  first.  But  before  he  can  under- 
stand the  second  his  mind  must  have  gone  through  another 
process.  In  the  term  white ^  an  abstraction  has  been  made  ; 
but  it  is  united  to  the  object  (although  always  abstracted 
from  it)  ;  in  the  term  whiteness^  the  abstraction  is  entirely 
divided  from  the  object,  and  has  itself  become  a  mental  ob- 
ject directly  expressed  by  the  word.  When  we  say  white ^  we 
express  an  object  which,  besides  whiteness^  has  other  qualities, 
to  which  we  are  not  giving  special  attention,  but  which  we 
know  to  be  there  generally,  and  which  must  be  there  for 
the  object  to  subsist ;  when  we  say  whiteness^  that  single 
quality  excludes  every  other  thought  from  the  mind.  White- 
ness^ then,  expresses  a  mode  of  abstraction  more  complete 
than  the  substantive  ichite. 

178.  The  abstraction  may  be  of  an  accidental  quality  in 
a  thing,  such  as  whiteness;  or  it  may  be  of  the  substance 
of  the  thing,  such  as  body.  vSometimes  the  abstract  term  is 
wanting  in  a  language,  and  only  the  common  name  exists ; 
as,  for  instance,  we  have  the  term  dog^  but  not  that  of  dog- 
7iess.  The  want  of  these  abstract  terms  proves  that  they  are 
of  later  date,  than  common  names. 

There  are  other  proofs  to  show  that  abstract  terms  were 
invented  later  than  common  names,  such  as  that  supplied  by 
etymology  ;  in  fact,  every  abstract  term  seems  derived  from 
a  common  one,  as  whiteness,  for  instance,  from  white. 


104  ON    THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

We  find  another  proof  of  what  we  are  affirming  in  the  most 
ancient  writers.  The  language  they  use  is  an  exact  reflec- 
tion of  the  degree  of  mental  development  in  their  times,  and 
we  ma}^  directly  infer  the  latter  from  the  former.  The  an- 
cient Oriental  writers,  like  the  Greek  philosophers,  and 
specially  Plato,  use  the  common  name  as  a  substantive  to 
express  the  abstract:  they  say  the  like,  the  unlike,  the  just, 
the  beautiful,  the  holy,  etc.,  for  likeness,  unlikeness,  justice, 
beauty,  holiness,  etc.-^  It  is  evident  that  the  former  were 
first  in  use,  and  that,  as  mental  power  developed  and  the 
need  was  felt  of  expressing  the  abstract  apart  from  any 
concrete,  instead  of  inventing  new  words  the  old  ones  were 
adapted  to  the  purpose  ;  according  to  the  constant  law  that, 
as  nations  advance  in  mental  development  and  their  primitive 
languages  cease  to  suffice  for  their  wants,  before  coining  new 
words,  they  set  themselves  to  alter  and  extend  the  meaning 
of  the  old  ones.^ 

§  2. — First  classification  of  sensible  things, 

179.  When  the  child,  then,  has  formed  to  himself  an 
abstraction,  he  has  laid  the  basis  of  a  classification  to  which 
he  can  refer  objects.    Thus,  for  example,  when  he  has  formed 

1  These  names  are  used  as  the  titles  of  several  of  Plato's  Dialogues. 

2  Latin  literature  exhibits  a  people  more  advanced  in  the  use  of  language,  by  the 
more  frequent  use  of  abstract  terms.  The  word  j^ulcritiido,  for  example,  is  fre- 
quently used  by  Cicero  where  Plato  only  uses  the  beautiful,  to  Ka\6v.  The  Latins, 
on  the  contrary,  use  the  word  pulcrmn,  with  great  propriety  reserving  it  almost 
exclusively  for  the  sentence  pulcrum  est,  which  always  refers  to  a  particular  thing, 
as,  for  example,  Cut  jjulcrum  fuU  in  medios  dormire  dies  (Horat.,Bk.  I.^Ep.  II., 
V.  30).  It  may  be  observed  that  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  to  indicate  the  abstract  ui 
Hebrew,  the  plural  of  the  common  name  is  used, — for  instance,  Spiritus  Deorum 
(Daniel  iv.  15)  for  the  Divine  Spirit ;  the  Ilobj,  or  the  Holy  of  Holies  (Ps.  cl.  1,  Lev. 
xiv.  13),  —  that  is,  the  holy  things,  —  to  express  holiness. 

This  mode  of  expression  reveals  the  mental  condition  of  a  people  who,  having 
arrived  at  abstracting  the  common  element  in  thing's  and  inventing  common  names, 
have  begun  to  feel  the  want  of  a  name  expressing  directly  and  accurately  the 
abstract  itself.  The  first  step  to  this  end  is  that  of  adapting  the  common  name  in 
an  abstract  sense,  as,  for  instance,  Sanctum  for  Sanctltas.    Afterwards  they  take 


PROCESS    OF   CLASSIFICATION.  105 

the  idea  of  that  which  is  common  to  all  the  objects  called 
doys^  on  seeing  one  of  these  objects  he  immediately  refers  it 
to  the  class  dog.  Before  making  the  abstraction  he  could 
not  have  made  the  classification. 

Classification^  then,  is  a  mental  process  which  follows  upon 
abstraction,  on  which  it  is  founded,  and  therefore  belongs  to 
a  higher  order  of  cognitions  than  the  second,  of  which  we 
are  speaking,  to  which  belongs  only  abstraction. 

180.  But  if  we  look  more  closely  into  the  matter  we  shall 
find  that  there  are  certain  primary  classifications  which  are 
made  simultaneously  with  the  abstractions,  and  by  one  and 
the  same  act  of  the  mind.  They  are  not  distinct,  bilt  implicit. 
When  the  mind  perceives,  through  the  repetition  of  the  word 
dog,  that  there  is  a  common  element  in  all  the  different  dogs 
seen,  it  accomplishes  two  things,  —  (1)  It  observes  the  com- 
mon element  in  all  these  objects  ;  and,  (2)  It  abstracts  it, 
using  it  as  the  sign  of  that  class  of  objects  named  dogs. 
To  recognize  this  common  element  in  several  objects  is,  in 
fact,  itself  a  classification,  which  is  completed  by  assigning 
to  them  a  common  name. 

However  true,  then,  it  may  be  that  the  man  who  has 
formed  abstractions,  when  he  sees  a  new  object  and  refers  it 

a  second  step,  and,  seeing  that  the  common  name  Sanctum  does  not  adequately  ex- 
press the  abstractioj;  hoi  mess,  —  because,  as  a  common  name,  it  only  indicates  one 
holy  thing  at  a  time,  while  the  abstract  (holiness)  is  a  single  element  existing  identi- 
cally in  many  things, — they  strive  to  express  that  abstract  which  they  tind  ecjually 
in  many  things,  by  using  for  it  the  common  name  made  plural,  as  in  Sancla, 
Sancta  Sane  forum.  The  common  name  is  founded  on  an  abstract  of  action,  or 
referring  to  action,  —  for  example,  the  moving,  the  stable;  hence,  when  they  passed 
on  to  express  the  abstract  as  one  word,  such  common  names  were  clianged  into 
the  infinitives  of  verbs  expressing  the  abstract  action  or  passion  of  things.  These 
infinitives  were,  later  on,  used  to  signify  the  abstract  itself,  not  as  an  act,  but,  so 
to  speak,  as  a  state.  For  instance,  the  infinitive  *1DX»  which  signifies  firmum  esse, 
is  used  also  to  express  firmness,  firmitas.  And  not  only  in  Greek  is  the  infini- 
tive continually  used  in  the  form  of  a  noun  (and  in  fact  it  is  a  noun),  but  in 
Italian  it  is  in  common  and  very  frequent  use,  which  it  was  not  among  the  Latins, 
as,  for  example,  Vessere,  U  far  delle  cose,  Vandare,  il  venire,  etc.  (the  being,  the 
domg  of  things,  the  going,  the  coming). 


106  ON    THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

to  a  class,  performs  another  mental  operation,  later  in  time 
and  of  a  Jiiglier  order  than  the  abstractions  themselves  which 
give  him  the  basis  of  the  classification,  yet  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  in  the  process  of  abstraction  there  is  something  that 
resembles  classification. 

§  3.  —  Integration. 

181.  The  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  God  also  belongs 
to  the  second  order  of  cognitions. 

In  that  order,  however,  God  is  known  only  as  the  neces- 
sary complement  of  being,  and  as  the  cause  of  all,  by  a 
faculty  of  the  mind  which  we  have  termed  integration. 

It  is  incredible  with  what  ease  and  quickness  our  minds 
perceive  that  whatever  comes  under  the  senses  is  contingent^ 
and  cannot  exist  without  a  something  necessary  whence  it 
takes  it  origin.  Few,  indeed,  are  those  who  can  explicitly 
account  for  this  sudden  upward  step  of  the  mind,^  but  none 
the  less  is  it  real ;  all  peoples,  in  all  periods  of  their  history, 
have  recognized  the  necessary  existence  of  a  God,  — that  is, 
of  a  necessary  unity,  first  cause  of  all,  —  as  self-manifest. 
The  most  idiotic  of  men  sees  this  truth  as  evident :  he  seeks 
no  reason  for  it ;  his  persuasion  is  immediate,  and  he  would 
wonder  at  any  one  who  should  ask  him  to  account  for  his 
belief,  and   possibly  laugh  at  or  ridicule  him  as  a  fool  or 

1  The  reason  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  accounting  for  this  natural  and  simple 
conclusion  is  that  it  rests  on  the  idea  of  the  absolute,  and  on  the  principle  of  abso- 
luteness into  which  that  idea  is  transmuted.  Now  the  idea  of  absoluteness  is  one  of 
those  we  have  termed  Elementary  Ideas  of  Being  {New  Essay,  No.  575),  which  are 
within  the  reach  of  all  men  to  make  use  of,  but  are  most  difficult  to  seize  by  the 
intellectual  attention  for  the  purpose  of  contemplating  and  fixing  them.  We  have 
and  use  them  from  the  beginning  as  means  of  knowledge  {j^rincipium  quo);  but  it  is 
only  when  the  mind  is  developed  by  the  exercise  of  philosophical  investigation  that 
they  become  objects  of  our  knowledge  {principium  quod).  Belnci,  in  the  intuition  we 
have  of  it  by  nature,  has  a  necessary  order  :  that  necessity,  by  which  we  see  that  no 
entity  can  exist  without  the  order  intrinsic  to  all  entities,  leads  us  to  see  manifestly 
that  the  contingent  entity  could  not  exist  unless  there  were  a  necessary  entity. 
From  our  cognitions  of  the  former,  then,  we  deduce  the  existence  of  the  latter, 
although  it  does  not  fall  under  our  senses. 


RECOGNITION    OF   GOD'S    EXISTENCE.  107 

a  trifler.  This  is  why  children  so  easily  understand  the 
word  "God"  as  signifying  a  Supreme  Being,  the  cause  of 
all,  and  give  their  assent  so  readily  when  his  existence  is 
affirmed. 

182.  And  this  ready  assent  by  children  is  not  to  be  taken 
as  a  gratuitous  belief  in  the  word  of  those  who  make  the  affir- 
mation. They  do  not,  in  this  case,  believe  blindly:  they 
see.  If  it  were  otherwise,  they  would  at  least  wonder 
greatly  at  the  conception  of  God,  when  the  attempt  was 
made  to  impress  it  upon  them  j  nor  would  it  find  that  easy 
and  natural  acceptance  with  them  which  causes  them,  so 
soon  as  they  are  able  to  conceive  it,  to  believe  that  God 
exists. 

Yet  without  language  children  could  not  perceive  this 
Divine  existence.  God  being  invisible,  they  could  not  fix  the 
conception  of  him  without  a  word  to  arrest  their  attention 
upon  it. 

But  what  is  the  knowledge  of  God  in  children?  It  is 
both  a  conception  and  a  belief:  I  say  belief  to  distinguish  it 
from  perception.  When  man  judges  that  a  thing  exists, 
because  he  feels  its  action  upon  himself,  he  has  the  perception 
of  it.  When  he  judges  that  a  thing  exists  without  feeling 
its  action  on  himself,  but  on  certain  grounds  of  reason,  he 
believes  in  it. 

CHAPTER    III. 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   ACTIVE  FACULTIES  IN  THE  THIRD  PERIOD 
OF    CHILDHOOD. 

183.  To  the  passive  faculties  correspond  an  equal  number 
of  active  faculties.^ 

When,  therefore,  we  have  accurately  defined  the  nature 
and  extent  of  the  development  of  the  senses  and  intelligence 

1  Anthropology)  No.  48. 


108  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

during  a  given  period  of  the  child's  life,  we  can  infer  the 
nature  and  extent  of  instinct  and  will  in  the  same  period. 

Important  as  it  is  to  know  the  degree  of  development  of 
the  passive  faculties,  in  order  to  measure  and  adapt  to  it  the 
instruction  to  be  given  to  the  child,  still  more  important  is  it 
to  know  the  degree  of  development  of  the  active  faculties ; 
for  without  this  knowledge  we  shall  be  powerless  to  adapt 
and  guide  his  practical  education^  in  which  we  can  make  use 
only  of  those  activities  which  have  already  been  awakened 
and  set  in  motion  within  him.^ 

184.  Now,  in  this  third  period  of  life,  the  child,  through 
the  means  of  language,  of  wants  and  instincts  newly  awak- 
ened in  consequence  of  his  development  through  the  two 
previous  periods,  — 

(1)  Adds  immensely  to  his  stock  of  perceptions,  memories 
of  perceptions,  and  imaginal  ideas.  To  this  corresponds  an 
equal  development  of  his  instincts  and  affective  and  apprecia- 
tive volitions. 

(2)  At  all  ages,  man  can  conceive  absent  things.  This 
causes  the  passion  of  desire.  It  is  true  that,  even  as  regards 
present  things,  we  may  feel  the  desire  to  enjoy  them,  if  they 
are  good  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  probable  that  the  desire  to 
enjoy  things  that  are  present  comes  very  late  to  man,  — 
appetite  and  naturcd  instinct,  which  inclines  the  animal  to 
them,  supplying  its  place.  The  memory  of  past  perception 
is  not  properly  a  conception  of  absent  objects,  and  primi- 
tively can  excite  only  a  certain  feeling  of  annoyance  that  the 
perception  is  past,  but  not  a  desire,  because  such  a  feeling 
alone  would  not  awaken  the  thought  that  the  perception 
could  be  renewed ;  whereas,  on  the  contrar}^,  if  the  thought 
of  a  pleasurable  absent  object  is  excited,  it  is  immediately 

1  On  the  manner  in  which  human  activity  gi-adually  awakens  and  becomes 
effective^  something  has  been  said  in  the  work  entitled  La  Societd,  e  il  suo  fine, 
*'  Society  and  its  End,"  B.  IV.  ri. 


HOW   ACTIVITY    OF   WILL   IS    EXCITED.  109 

followed  by  a  spontaneous  action  of  the  will  desiring  it. 
The  third  period  of  childhood  is,  then,  marked  by  the  birth 
of  desire. 

(3)  But  a  greater  activity  of  the  will  is  excited  in  virtue 
of  the  earliest  abstractions.  As  the  understanding  fixes  its 
attention  exclusively  on  an  element  common  to  several  ob- 
jects, so,  if  this  element  is  pleasant,  the  will  desires  it ;  if  it 
be  unpleasant,  it  abhors  it.  Now,  the  difference  is  immense 
between  the  volitions  which  have  for  their  object  an  actually 
existing  individual,  such  as  it  is,  or  even  a  fall-species  of 
individuals,^  and  the  volitions  the  object  of  which  is  an  ele- 
ment common  to  many  individuals,  an  abstraction.  In  the 
first  case,  the  will  loves  an  object  which  is  good  (honum)  ; 
in  the  second,  it  loves  that  which  makes  the  objects  good 
{rationem  boni) ,  the  goodness  in  them.  The  volitions  which 
have  for  their  term  only  a  determinate  object  which  is  good 
are  satisfied  by  its  possession,  and  therefore  their  effective 
action  quickly  ceases.  On  the  contrary,  the  volitions  which 
have  for  their  term  a  common  element,  which  gives  their 
goodness  to  that  kind  of  objects,  do  not  find  their  satisfac- 
tion in  this  term,  which  is  an  abstraction  incapable  of  appeas- 
ing them,  but  use  this  abstraction,  which  was  their  first  term, 
as  a  sign  by  which  to  recognize  what  objects  are  good,  and 
to  discern  them  from  the  bad.  Here,  then,  the  activity  of 
the  will  finds  an  immense  field  for  its  development,  because 
this  element  of  goodness  which  it  desires  is  realized  in  an 
infinity  of  objects  which  man,  arrived  at  this  point,  goes 
incessantly  in  search  of.  Hence  it  is  that,  as  I  have  shown 
elsewhere,  the  faculty  of  abstraction  is  that  which  furnishes 
man  with  the  rules  by  which  he  discerns  and  finds  that  which 
is  good.^ 

1  Tliis  full-species  is,  as  we  have  said,  that  which  is  founded  on  a  completely 
definite  conception,  or  one  that  answers  to  an  iinaginal  idea. 

2  See  La  Societd  e  U  suofine,  "Society  and  its  End,"  B.  IV.  c.  xxiii. 


110  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

(4)  Among  the  earliest  abstractions,  we  find  quantity  in 
sensible  objects,  whether  as  continuous  or  intensive.  It  is  by 
means  of  this  abstraction  that  the  child  discerns  the  greater 
from  the  less,^  —  that,  for  example,  which  gives  him  more, 
from  that  which  gives  him  less,  pleasure. 

This  cognizance  of  the  quantity  of  things  awakens  in  him 
a  new  class  of  volitions,  — ^.  e.  the  appreciative  volitions,'^ 
and  the  power  of  choice  which  begins  at  that  age.^ 

(5)  Another  of  the  primary  abstractions  made  by  the 
child  from  things,  and  most  important  to  his  development, 
is  that  of  animated  being  (animalita), 

1  Even  the  sensual  instinct  acts  as  if  it  could  discern  the  more  and  the  less  ;  but, 
when  an  animal  seizes  the  larger  of  two  morsels  of  food,  or  the  one  it  likes  best,  it 
is  not  because  it  discerns  the  greater  from  the  less,  but  by  a  law  of  its  own  nature, 
the  effects  of  which  resemble  those  of  intelligence,  as  we  have  explauied  at  length 
in  the  Anthropology,  No.  430  and  foil. 

2  See  the  Anthropology,  No.  619. 

3  As  regards  discrete  quantity,  I  believe  that  the  child,  arrived  only  at  the  second 
order  of  cognitions,  cannot  count  beyond  two,  because  to  combine  two  objects  is 
already  a  reflection,  and  to  put  together  three  presupposes  the  reflection  that  first 
combined  the  two,  so  that  each  addition  of  a  unity  seems  to  be  a  reflection  on  the 
preceding  additions.  It  may  be  objected  to  this  opinion  of  mine,  that  the  senses 
themselves  present  many  objects  simultaneously  to  the  child,  and  therefore  that 
his  intelligence  grasps  them  at  one  glance.  But  this  fact,  however  true,  does  not 
seem  to  me  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  number  the  objects,  or  to  form  true  collec- 
tions of  them,  because  the  human  mind  does  not  form  a  collection  until  it  has,  1st. 
Perceived  each  object ;  2d.  Distinguished  the  one  from  the  other ;  3d.  Compared 
them  together,  joined  them  by  some  word.  This  is  not  done  by  sense,  which  only 
feels  several  things,  but  does  not  knoio  that  they  are  several.  It  is  always  of 
the  utmost  importance  to  distinguish  carefully  feeling  from  knowing.  With  re- 
gard to  my  classing  the  knowledge  of  continuous  quantity  under  the  second  order 
of  cognitions,  it  might  be  objected  that  man  does  not,  in  his  earliest  perceptions, 
affirm  more  than  the  entity  {entitd.)  of  the  thing ;  its  mode  of  existence  is  only 
felt  by  him  (No.  109-112).  It  is,  then,  by  a  second  act  that  the  mind  perceives  the 
absolute  quantity  of  a  body,  and  by  a  third  that  it  compares  the  absolute  quantity  of 
two  bodies  and  finds  their  relative  quantity,  —  that  is,  the  greater  and  the  less,  which 
are  words  expressing  relations.  I  confess  that  this  difficulty  requires  consideration. 
Nevertheless,  it  has  not  induced  me  to  change  my  view  of  the  perceptions  of  great 
and  small,  as  belonging  to  the  second  order  of  cognitions,  because  the  perception 
of  absolute  quality,  although  posterior  to  the  earliest  perceptions,  and  an  advance 
upon  them,  is  still  only  a  perception,  and  therefore  does  not  exceed  the  first  order 
of  cognitions.  To  know  that  one  object  is  large  and  another  small  presupposes 
only  the  confrontation  of  two  objects  at  once,  and  two  objects  can  thus  be  con- 
fronted, as  we  have  said,  by  the  second  grade  of  cognitions. 


RECOGNITION   OF   ANIMATE    LIFE.  Ill 

If  he  could  reflect  on  his  own  feeUngs  and  thoughts,  he 
would  have  an  immediate  perception  of  his  own  soul,  which 
would  be  a  cognition  of  the  first  order,  and  therefore  more 
elementary  than  that  which  he  has  of  soul  as  the  cause  of 
motion  in  animated  beings.  But,  although  the  soul-feeling 
{Vaniina-sentimento)  is  the  object  of  a  cognition  of  the  first 
order,  such  a  cognition  is  as  yet  beyond  the  child,  because 
the  stimulus  is  wanting  to  draw  his  attention  to  his  own  feel- 
ings and  arrest  it  there.  His  attention  is  like  a  child  always 
running  away  from  home  ;  the  objects  of  his  wants  and  his 
external  sensations,  amongst  which  are  the  sounds  of  words, 
draw  it  from  within  to  the  world  without. 

Nor  would  he  arrive  at  arguing,  from  motion  in  animals, 
to  the  existence  of  a  principle  of  motion  in  the  animal,  if 
language  did  not  teach  him  to  attend  to  a  part  instead  of 
the  whole  of  a  thing,  and  from  the  complex  to  abstract  its 
element.  Thus,  in  the  animal,  he  can  think,  by  means  of 
language,  the  character  of  mobility,  and  make  the  abstrac- 
tion animate  being,  or  the  animal.  This  is  what  enables  him 
to  distinguish  not  only  a  great  and  a  little  in  things,  but  also 
a  difference  of  dignity ;  he  can  already,  in  his  practical  judg- 
ment, estimate  animate  objects  higher  than  inanimate,  and 
prefer  the  former  to  the  latter,  as  the  greater  entities. 

(6)  Finally,  the  cognition  of  the  existence  of  God,  as 
complement  of  the  entities,  exalts  the  activity  of  his  feelings 
to  the  most  sublime  of  objects,  and  places  him  already  in 
communication  with  Heaven. 


112  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 


CHAPTER    lY. 

OF    THE    TEACHING   CORRESPONDING    TO    THE    SECOND    ORDER    OF 
COGNITIONS. 

ARTICLE    I. 

FOUR  ERRORS  TO  BE  AVOIDED  BY  TEACHERS. 

185.  To  the  child,  every  new  idea  is  a  joj  :  his  intelligence 
rushes  in  at  every  door  opened  to  it.  As  the  first  act  of 
intelligence  parts  the  lips  of  the  infant  with  a  smile,  so  its 
delight  in  the  sound  of  the  mother's  words  shows  itself  by 
exulting  motions ;  and,  as  soon  as  it  can  itself  pronounce 
words,  the  difficulty  is  to  keep  it  silent.  It  is  going  against 
nature  to  deprive  the  child  of  the  use  of  speech,  which  is 
equivalent  to  him  to  the  newly  acquired  use  of  his  intelli- 
gence, the  best  part  of  himself.  The  teacher  should  avail 
himself  of  this  innate  and  noblest  impulse,  not  repressing 
it,  —  which  is  an  offence  against  the  divine  light  shining  in 
the  human  soul,  —  but  wisely  employing  and  guiding  it. 
This,  however,  is  a  most  difficult  art. 

186.  The  errors  made  in  this  direction  may  be  reduced  to 
four : — 

(1)  Sometimes  the  intellectual  activity  of  the  child  be- 
comes annoying  and  troublesome,  and  an  attempt  is  made 
to  repress  it  by  authority,  refusing  it  sufficient  food. 

(2)  Sometimes  the  material  memory  of  the  child  is  bur- 
dened, while  his  intelligence  is  left  to  starve,  —  which  is  not 
only  a  most  serious  injury  to  the  little,  intelligent  creature, 
who  craves  only  to  understand,  but  also  cruel  and  inhuman. 

(3)  Sometimes  the  intelligence  is  given  food  not  adapted 
to  it ;  in  other  words,  it  is  called  upon  to  perform  acts  of  a 
higher  order  than  it  has  yet  attained  to,  —  in  which  case,  to 
understand   anything   beyond   mere   words   is    an    absolute 


ORDER   TO   BE   OBSERVED.  113 

impossibility.  Sometimes  the  cognitions  required  of  it  are 
not  beyond  its  powers,  but  the  intellectual  attention  lacks 
the  necessary  stinuilus  to  make  the  effort  to  attain,  them. 

(4)  Finally,  even  when  all  the  cognitions  required  of  the 
childish  intelligence  are  proposed  to  it  in  their  due  order, 
and  accompanied  by  the  appropriate  stimuli,  there  is  failure, 
because  the  teacher  passes  from  one  thing  to  another,  with- 
out having  assured  himself  that  the  llrst  thing  was  duly 
understood,  and  that  the  child  is  really  following  the  suc- 
cessive steps  of  the  teaching  ;  in  other  words,  he  does  not 
give  the  child  time  to  take  in  the  matter,  to  master  it,  and 
to  recover  from  the  kind  of  surprise  which  every  new  idea 
produces  in  him. 

The  preceding  observations  should  be  borne  in  mind  at 
the  beginning  of  each  of  the  following  chapters,  in  which 
we  shall  treat  of  the  teaching  of  children  at  the  several 
periods,  or  rather  at  each  of  the  successive  periods  of  their 
childhood,  as  marked  by  each  order  of  cognitions.  But 
how  easy  it  is  to  forget  them ! 

ARTICLE    n. 

THE  GAIK  TO  THE  MIND    FROM    THE    REGULARITY  WITH    WHICH    PERCEPTIONS 
AND  IMAGINAL  IDEAS  HAVE  BEEN  IMPARTED  IN  THE  PRECEDING   PERIOD. 

187.  We  come  now  to  the  teaching  which  should  be  given 
to  the  child  as  corresponding  with  the  second  grade  of  cog- 
nitions. But  let  us  first  note  that  the  child  does  not,  at 
that  age,  reap  all  the  fruit  which  will  follow  from  that  or- 
derly presentation  to  the  mind  of  perceptions  and  cognitions 
recommended  by  us  (Nos.  178-181).  Yet  some  good  result 
is  obtained  both  on  the  mind  and  life  of  the  child,  though  it 
is  difficult  to  trace  it. 

In  man  there  is  a  subjective  unity ^ — that  is,  an  ultimate 
unity  of  feeling.      Thus,  every  sensation,  perception,  or  idea 


114  ON   THE    KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

produces  a  certain  effect,  good  or  bad,  on  this  ultimate  feel- 
ing. It  follows  that,  whenever  the  sensations,  perceptions, 
and  ideas  are  well  harmonized,  the  fundamental  being  of  man 
is  improved ;  all  of  them  acting  upon  it  together,  to  produce 
a  single  effect,  which  belongs  to  the  order  of  the  cause 
whence  it  springs.  Hence,  although  the  child  is  as  yet 
ignorant  of  this  order  in  its  sensations  and  cognitions,  yet, 
by  a  law  of  its  constitution,  it  reaps  the  benefit  of  it. 

ARTICLE    III. 

MATTER  OF  INSTRUCTION,  —  LANGUAGE. 

Section  1.  —  The  child  should  he  taught  to  name  the  greatest  possible  number  of 

things. 

188.  The  matter  of  instruction  fitted  to  this  third  period 
of  childhood  is  given  by  the  stage  of  intelligence  which  we 
have  examined  and  described. 

It  results  that  the  first  thing  to  be  taught  at  that  age  is 
language.  It  will  therefore  be  a  great  gain  to  the  child 
to  learn  at  that  age  to  name  as  many  objects  as  possible, 
and  to  speak  correctly  within  the  limits  of  his  knowledge. 
This  used  to  be  entirely  neglected,  but  the  admirable  in- 
vention of  infant  schools  gives  us  better  hopes  for  the 
future.  I  also  rejoice  to  see  that  books  are  now  being 
written  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  children  to  name  things 
properly.  Among  these  it  will  suffice  to  mention  the  manual 
of  Vitale  Rosi,^  already  quoted. ^ 

Section  2.  —  Limits  of  this  instruction. 

189.  The  teaching  of  language  to  the  child  must,  of 
course,  be  limited  by  its  knowledge,  —  that  is,  by  the  condi- 
tion of  its  intelligence.     The  words  used  to  him  in  the  third 

1  Fuligno,  Tomassini,  1832. 

2  Rosmiiii  would  have  rejoiced  still  more  had  he  become  acquainted  with  Froe- 
bel's  Kindergarten  system,  in  which  the  accurate  use  of  language,  from  the  very 
beginning,  plays  an  important  part.  — A^o^e  of  the  Translator. 


EXERCISES  IN  THE  USE  OF  LANGUAGE.       115 

period  of  which  we  are  treating  should  exprc  ss  cognitions 
of  the  first  and  second  order,  but  no  more. 

Language,  the  nature  of  which  is  to  express  all  degrees 
of  cognition,  is  the  most  fitting  instrument  for  the  develop- 
ment of  intelligence  at  every  period  of  human  life ;  but  one 
portion  of  it  only  is  suited  and  proportioned  to  the  third 
period,  and  that  alone  should  be  used  with  the  child  at  this 
time,  because  that  alone  can  be  intelligible  to  him,  and  any- 
thing more  would  simply  load  his  memory,  while  leaving  his 
understanding  vacant  and  sterile.  This  would  be  to  commit 
the  third  and  fourth  errors  pointed  out  above. 

Let  the  child,  then,  learn  to  name  his  own  perceptions, 
and  the  abstractions  which  are  derived  immediately  from 
sensible  objects,  absent  things,  those  which  are  invisible, 
and  the  conceptions  he  has  derived  from  his  faculty  of 
integration. 

190.  It  is  certain  that  from  this  period  the  child  can  learn 
two  or  three  languages  by  ear,  without  any  great  effort.  If 
this  is  done  by  making  his  mother  tongue  the  principal  one, 
and  using  what  he  learns  of  the  others  as  equivalents  super- 
added to  it,  the  exercise  in  these  languages  will  be  a  gain  of 
time,  a  step  in  advance  made  by  the  child. -^ 

Section  3.  —  Double  practice  in  language,  — the  natural  and  artificial. 

191.  Language  should  be  taught  to  children  by  both  a 
natural  and  artificial  practice  of  it. 

In  the  natural  practice,  every  part  of  speech  may  be  used, 

^  The  authoress  of  UEssai  sur  r Education  de  VEnfance  gives  the  same  advice. 
"Les  enfants,"  she  says,  "peuvent  sans  inconvenient  apprendre  simultanement 
deux  ou  trois  langues,  surtoutquand  ils  sont  entoures  des  I'origine  de  personnes  qui 
en  font  usa^e  avec  eux.  Cela  se  pratique  avec  succes  chez  les  peuples  du  nord,  pu 
les  enfants  parlent  des  le  berceau  plusieurs  idiomes  differents.  Ce  nioyen,  le  seul 
praticable  dans  la  premiere  enfance,  n'offre  pas,  il  est  vrai,  I'avantage  de  former 
I'esprit  conune  une  etude  faite  \yay  principes ;  mais  rien  Jie  s'oppose  k  ce  que 
I'enfant  entrepreinie  un  peu  ]>his  tard  ce  dernier  genre  de  travail,  qui  lui  sera 
rendu  plus  facile  alors  par  les  connaissances  qu'il  aura  doja  acquises.  D'ailleurs 
si  une  lacune  a  lieu  ^  cet  egard,  on  peut  y  supplier  par  1' etude  approfondie  de  la 


116  ON    THE    KULING    PlilNCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

—  not  one  being  above  the  second  stage  of  human  intelli- 
gence, with  the  exception  of  certain  of  the  conjunctions,  — 
because  all  may  be  used  to  express  feelings,  perceptions, 
abstractions  of  the  first  degree,  and  the  moods  of  the  mind. 

Feelings  are  expressed  by  interjections,  which  are  not, 
properly  speaking,  signs. 

Perceptions  are  expressed  by  proper  names,  by  adverbs  of 
time  and  place,  by  the  personal  pronouns  /,  thou^  etc.  ;  and 
demonstrative  pronouns,  tliis^  tliat^  etc.  Abstractions  are 
expressed  by  all  other  nouns,  by  the  infinitive  of  verbs,  by 
participles,  and  by  certain  conjunctions. 

The  moods  of  the  mind  are  indicated  by  the  inflections  of 
verbs,  by  prepositions,  and  by  certain  conjunctions. 

192.  The  natural  practice  of  language  should  follow  these 
rules :  — 

(1)  Nothing  should  be  said  to  the  child  which  goes  beyond 
the  stage  of  development  his  intelligence  has  arrived  at. 

(2)  He  should  hear  only  the  best  language,  well-chosen 
and  accurate  words,  a  refined  accent,  and,  above  all,  correct 
pronunciation. 

(3)  The  persons  who  speak  to  children  should  convey 
to  them,  by  tone  and  manner,  the  sense  of  moral  elevation. 
Were  this  done,  the  children  would  gain  immensely  in  time ; 
for  not  only  would  their  intelligence  be  more  rapidly  devel- 
oped, but  the  foundations  of  moral  good  results  would  be 
laid  at  the  same  time. 

193.  In  Italy,  precious  time  is  lost  by  our  having  to  un- 

langue  matemelle,  de  toutes  la  plus  essentielle  k  savoir  bien  et  k  parler  correcte- 
ment."  The  facility  with  which  children  learning  two  languages  at  once  avoid 
confusing  them  is  a  singular  fact,  which,  however,  is  to  be  explained  by  means  of 
the  unitive  force  springing  from  the  perfect  unity  of  the  subject.  Mad.  Necker 
says,  admirably  as  usual :  "  Sounds  are  linked  together  and  come  back  to  our 
minds  like  images  ;  thus,  one  word  recalling  all  the  other  words  which  accompa- 
nied it,  the  different  idioms  are  not  mixed  up  by  children  in  their  talk.  The  dan- 
ger of  any  confusion  will  be  more  easily  avoidcnl  if  the  same  person  always  speaks 
to  the  child  the  same  language.  The  idea  of  the  person  being  then  connected 
with  a  certain  mode  of  speech,  the  child  will  use  the  same  in  answenng."  (i>e 
VEducation  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  vi.) 


BENEFITS   OF   A   NATIONAL   LANGUAGE.  117 

learn  at  school  the  dialect  we  learned  at  home  ;  and,  even 
after  having  done  this,  we  do  not  learn  to  speak  good 
Italian,  partly  because  we  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  the  lower 
vernacular  familiar  to  us  from  childhood,  and  partly  because 
our  masters  themselves,  to  whom  pure  Italian  is  an  acquired 
art  and  a  dialect  is  natural,  cannot  give  us  what  they  have 
not  got.  Correct  pronunciation  alone  takes  a  very  long  time 
to  learn ;  and  yet  we  might  have  it  living  in  our  ears,  if  we 
had  been  accustomed  from  infancy  to  hear  the  double  letters 
properly  sounded  ])y  those  around  us. 

By  language  we  form  our  ideas,  and  the  perfection  of 
language  is  the  perfection  of  thought. 

Moreover,  whatever  brings  us  order  and  propriety,  and 
assists  us  to  think  with  ease  and  correctness,  tends  to  moral 
training  of  a  most  precious  kind. 

Finally,  how  great  would  be  the  advantage  to  this  beau- 
tiful region,  if  Italy  came  to  have  only  one  speech !  How 
many  divisions  amongst  her  people  would  not  that  alone 
cause  to  disappear !  How  far  greater  would  be  our  sense  of 
brotherhood !  How  would  the  love  of  our  common  country 
increase !  ^ 

These  things  make  me  marvel  that  in  our  great  families, 
where  the  children  are  to  be  given  the  best  education,  care 
is  not  taken  to  make  them  imbibe,  as  it  were  with  mother's 
milk,  a  pure  and  refined  speech,  and  their  infant  ears  be 
allowed  to  hear  only  good  things  spoken  in  good  language. 

§  4 .  —  Continuation .  —  Artificial  practice . 

194.  This  should  be  the  privilege  of  the  rich :  not  to  dis- 
dain for  their  children  the  use  of  public  schools,  but  to  send 
them  there  better  trained,  more  developed,  than  others,  and 
already  in  possession  of  the  language  the   latter   have  to 

1  The  unity  of  Italy  under  one  monarchy  is  rapidly  realizing  Rosmini's  patriotic 
wish.  A  common  country  necessitates  a  common  language.— A^o^e  of  the  Translator. 


118  ON    THE    liULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

labor  at  learning.  How  justly,  then,  would  the  wisdom  of 
the  parents,  joined  to  their  means,  obtain  the  first  place  in 
the  schools  for  their  children  !  And  the  latter  would  have 
time  to  spare  to  learn  a  multitude  of  useful  things  which 
would  enable  them  to  hold  their  vantage-ground  in  relation 
to  their  school-fellows. 

A  word  as  to  the  artificial  exercise  of  speech  for  children : 
it  should,  at  that  age,  besides  correcting  -the  child  whenever 
lie  uses  a  wrong  expression,  consist  solely  in  giving  him,  as 
much  as  possible,  the  materials  of  speech.  The  forms  he 
is  not  yet  competent  to  learn,  for  the  forms  of  speech,  that 
is,  grammar,  require  an  order  of  cognitions  far  above  the 
second. 

195.  But  as  to  the  material,  he  must  be  taught  to  name 
everything  accurately ;  first  those  things  nearest  to  him, 
then  the  more  distant.  He  will  thus  acquire  an  ample 
vocabulary,  and  thereby  great  ease  and  propriety  of  speech, 
which  is  as  much  as  to  say,  of  thought,  and  in  time  also  of 
writing. 

The  "Manual  of  Preparatory  Schools"  and  other  books 
composed  for  this  purpose  will  be  found  very  useful  to- 
wards it. 

This  is  the  time  for  exercising  the  child  in  distinguishing 
by  their  names  all  the  things  that  fall  under  his  senses. 
Names  (nouns)  constitute  the  fundamental  part  of  language, 
and  the  exercises  must  not  include  verbs,  except  their  iiijini- 
tives  and  partici2^les^  which  are  truly  nouns,  the  former  signi- 
fying actions,  the  latter  agents.^ 

1  "  II  est  vrai,"  says  Mad.  Necker,  "  que  plusieurs  mots  qui  sont  des  verbes 
pour  nous  n'en  sont  pas  toujours  pour  eux;  ainsi  a  &oire,  c'est  de  Veau  ou  du  lait ; 
promener,  c'est  le  plein  air  ou  la  jwrte.  Mais  quand  ils  commencent  k  vouloir  qu'on 
agisse  en  consequence  de  ces  mots,  I'action  prend  de  plus  en  plus  de  la  consistance 
dans  leur  esprit  et  ils  finissent  par  y  attacher  veritablenient  un  signe."  —  De 
V Education  Progressive,  L.  II.  c.  VI.  The  more  ancient  a  language  is  the  more  it 
abounds  in  infinitives  and  participles  which  replace  many  other  forms  of  verbs. 
For  example,  in  Hebrew,  the  third  person  of  the  perfect  tense  is  no  other  than 


ORDER  TO  BE  FOLLOWED  IN  ABSTRACTIONS.     119 

196.  This  is  tlie  fitting  place  to  say  something  of  the 
order  which  the  mind  of  the  child  should  be  induced  to 
follow  in  abstraction. 

There  are  many  unnamed  abstractions.  To  these  the 
child's  attention  should  not  be  directed  because  it  cannot  be 
assisted  by  words,  and  the  fact  that  they  have  no  names  is  a 
manifest  sign  that  mankind  have  not  felt  the  want  of  nam- 
ing them,  as  it  is  also  a  sign  that  they  are  not  among  the 
things  which  fall  under  our  observation. 

But  there  are  several  kinds  of  abstractions  among  those 
that  are  named :  some  are  abstractions  from  abstractions  ; 
these  are  beyond  the  child's  intelligence,  which  has  reached 
only  the  primary  abstractions :  he  could  never  understand 
the  meaning  of  the  words  law^  justice^  etc.  The  abstrac- 
tions he  can  understand  are  those  only  which  are  supplied 
by  sensible  things.  But  even  these  have  various  common 
names  indicating  various  degrees  of  abstraction.  The  most 
common  names  indicate  things  by  the  element  common  to 
the  largest  number  of  objects,  and  the  less  common  names 
indicate  the  same  things  by  an  element  common  to  fewer 
objects.  The  latter,  therefore,  express  a  higher  degree  of 
abstraction  than  the  former.  For  instance,  if  I  want  to 
name  a  horse,  I  may  name  him  in  three  different  ways,  say- 
ing, "that  thing,"  "that  animal,"  "that  horse."  I  use 
three  names  which  can  be  equally  well  applied  to  the  object ; 
but  when  I  call  it  thing ^  I  give  it  a  name  common  to  a  larger 
number  of  objects  than  when  I  call  it  animal;  and  in  using 
the  latter  I  apply  a  name  more  common  than  that  of  horse, 

the  infinitive  of  the  verb,  as  Tp3>  inspicere,  is  used  to  signify  respexit.  In  the 
same  way,  the  participle,  with  the  verb  to  he  understood,  takes  the  place  of  other 
forms.  In  Kings  iii.  15,  where  the  Vulgate  translates  ministrabat,  the  Hebrew 
says  TTlt^Dj  mivisfraus,  or  iras  mmistering.  And,  in  fact,  in  the  scale  of  cogni- 
tions, the  noun  stands  lower  than  the  verb;  hence  the  hijinltive  and  the  pnrt'iriple 
which  are  really  nouns  must  necessarily  abound  in  primitive  languages,  when  the 
intelligence  of  men  is  in  its  earliest  stage  of  development,  and  the  other  verbjd 
forms  requiring  greater  abstraction  come  later  into  use. 


120  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

And  yet  the  name  horse  is  still  a  common  and  not  a  proper 
name  :  it  indicates  an  abstraction  which  is  founded  on  the 
abstract  species^  under  which  there  is  another  or  several  oth- 
ers (the  full  imperfect  species)  not  named  before  we  come 
to  proper  names,  such  as  Rondello,  Vigliantino,  Brigliadoro.^ 

197.  Now  let  us  inquire  whether,  in  the  artificial  exercise 
of  speech  imposed  on  the  child,  it  is  most  in  accordance 
with  the  order  of  nature  to  make  him  name  things  by  the 
most  common  names,  and  afterwards  by  the  less  common,  or 
vice  versa. 

On  this  point  we  have  already  given  our  opinion  (45- 
50)  and  will  here  only  support  and  explain  it  by  some 
further  observations.  But  first  let  it  be  noted  that  we  are 
not  now  speaking  of  the  natural  exercise  of  speech,  in  which 
the  only  order  to  be  followed  is  that  of  the  wants  which  cir- 
cumstances require  to  be  expressed.  Secondly,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  more  common  the  name  is,  and  there- 
fore the  more  general  the  idea  it  expresses,  the  easier  it  is 
for  the  child  to  learn. 

To  convince  ourselves  of  this,  we  need  only  observe  how 
children  and  the  vulgar,  that  is,  the  least  developed  classes 
of  mankind,  always  give  to  objects  the  widest  common 
name,  such  as  this  thing ^  that  thing ^  etc.,  instead  of  this 
plaything,  that  cart,  that  jacket,  etc.  In  the  ancient  lan- 
guages, the  use  of  generic  rather  than  specific  terms  is  more 
frequent  than  with  us,  precisely  because  the  ancient  world 
was  less  developed  than  the  modern.     Observe  in  the  Latin, 

1  Although  objects  are  never  called  by  a  name  indicating  their  full  imperfect 
species,  which  embraces  all  accidental  qualities,  yet  they  occasionally  receive 
names  which  partly  indicate  the  abstract  species  and  partly  accidents.  Thus  the 
names  given  to  horses,  such  as  bay,  chestnut,  dapple,  roan,  black,  sorrel,  piebald, 
from  the  color  of  their  coats,  are  names  given  to  a  species  not  wholly  abstract,  but 
distinguished  by  some  accidental  quality  ;  the  word  roan,  for  instance,  standing 
between  the  name  horse  (abstract  species)  and  liOiulello,  the  proper  name  of  an 
existing  individual.  There  are  an  infinite  number  of  tliese  specific  denominations, 
and  they  are  true  common  names,  partly  universal  and  partly  also  abstract. 


USE    OF    CIENKRAL    AND    SPECIFIC    TERMS.  121 

for  instance,  the  use  made  of  the  word  res :  it  was  applied 
to  everything.^ 

Another  observation  leads  us  to  the  same  conchision. 
Why  is  purity  of  style  so  rare  and  so  highly  valued,  but 
because  it  is  so  difficult  to  name  things  by  the  words  signify- 
ing the  more  limited  species,  which  are  habitually  named 
loosely  imder  generic  terms. 

198.  It  will,  perhaps,  be  said  that  children  find  it  easier 
to  learn  and  apply  the  more  general  common  names  because 
they  apply  to  a  larger  number  of  objects,  and  are,  therefore, 
more  frequently  heard.  But  the  question  still  remains,  why 
adults  themselves  should  make  such  frequent  use  of  generic 
names  if  it  were  easier  for  them  to  use  the  specific  ones, 
which  certainly  are  more  appropriate,  and  help  correctness 
of  language. 

It  is  certain,  then,  that  the  more  ideas  are  general  the 
more  congenial  and  familiar  they  are  to  the  human  mind, 
provided  they  express  only  immediate  abstractions,  that  is, 
such  as  denote  a  common  element  in  the  sensible  things 
perceived  by  us.  The  case  would  be  changed  if  the  abstrac- 
tions were  such  as  are  formed  by  an  action  of  the  mind  on 
previous  abstractions,  and  which  we  have  termed  abstractions 
from  abstractions.^ 

It  is,  then,  of  the  greatest  advantage  to  the  child  to  prac- 

1  Torcellini  says  on  the  word  res:  Vox  est  immensa prope  usus  ad  omnia  signifi- 
canda,  quse  fieri,  did,  aut  cogitari  possunt.  These  observations  are,  in  fact,  a  fresh 
proof  of  the  faults  of  our  philosophical  system:  thing,  or  res,  is  a  word  equivalent 
(with  little  difference)  to  entity,  being.  The  words  which  are  most  frequently  used 
show  that  the  ideas  they  express  are  the  most  familiar  and  natural  to  man.  This 
would  be  impossible  as  regards  the  idea  of  entity,  the  most*  abstract  of  all,  if  it  had 
to  be  f oimed  by  dint  of  successive  abstractions,  instead  of  springing  into  life  simul- 
taneously with  the  human  mind  itself. 

2  If  this  important  distinction  is  attended  to,  we  shall  not  be  accused  of  contra- 
dicting ourselves  when  we  assert  that  the  first  of  the  natural-moral  laws  appre- 
hended by  the  mind  assume  a  specific  form,  and  only  later  a  more  generic  and 
iiniversal  one.  See  Trattato  delta  Coscienza  Morale  ("Treatise  on  the  Moral 
Conscience  "),  Nos.  150-156. 


122 


ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 


tise  him  in  passing  from  the  more  general  names  of  things 
to  the  less  general.  When  he  has  gone  through  this  process 
repeatedly  with  many  different  kinds  of  things,  his  ideas  will 
be  arranged  in  their  right  order ;  he  will  have  laid  in  the 
fittest  material  for  subsequent  reflection,  and  his  mind  be- 
comes accurate  and  logical. 

199.  But  besides  observing  the  rules  given  above,  there 
are  certain  others,  of  which  the  following  is  an  example  : 
The  educator  should  have  a  table  drawn  up  of  the  classes 
more  or  less  extensive  into  which  all  the  things  conceived 
can  be  divided.  This  should  be  the  foundation  of  his  logic. 
Here  is  such  a  table  : 


Universal 


Categories  . 


Genera     .    . 


Species      .     . 


Subsisting     . 


Being. 

Elementary  ideas  of  being. 

Ideal  Being. 
Real  Being. 
Moral  Being. 

Real  Genera. 
Mental  Genera. 
Nominal  Genera. 


'  Abstract  Species. 
Semi-abstract  Species. 

}    Full-imperfect  species. 
Full-perfect  species^- 
Ideal, 


In    the    exercises   above   mentioned   should   be   included 


1  This  scheme  has  the  form  proper  to  tlie  cognitions  having  individuals  for 
their  object  (the  real,  universal,  and  abstracted).  By  the  side  of  this  there  should 
be  another  having  the  form  proper  to  cognitions  which  have  for  their  object  the 
abstractions  themselves.  This  second  form  has  the  same  subdivisions  except  the 
F.uhsisting,  which  is  altogether  wanting ;  but  the  word  entity  should  take  the  place 
of  being,  and  the  same  in  all  the  other  conceptions  included  in  the  scheme. 


CHOICE    OF   NAMES    TO    BE    TAUGHT.  123 

neither  the  names  signif^^ing  the  elementary  ideas  of  being 
(though  amongst  tlic  easiest),  nor  those  indicating  catego- 
ries, or  denothig  mental  or  nominal  genera,  but  solely  the 
words  signifying  the  universal^  the  real  genera^  the  abstract 
and  semi-abstract  species,  and  also  the  subsisting  (proper 
names) . 

200.  Now,  as  the  semi-abstract  species  may  be  innumera- 
ble, we  have  still  to  find  the  rule  by  which  to  choose  those 
best  suited  to  the  child.  Here  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  right  rule  is  to  choose  those  in  which  he  will  be  most 
interested,  and  he  is  most  interested  in  those  which  are  most 
closely  related  to  his  wants  and  instincts,  and  which  soonest 
and  most  vividly  strike  his  external  senses. 

The  educator,  therefore,  must  examine  with  subtle  insight 
the  development  of  these  wants  and  instincts  in  the  child, 
and  the  order  and  vividness  of  his  sensations,  in  order  to 
discover  which  are  the  accidental  qualities  in  things  which 
most  interest  him,  and  thus  lead  him  on  by  this  natural  gra- 
dation to  recognize  in  each  thing  the  semi-abstract  species. 

Moreover,  we  must  remember  that  these  semi-abstractions 
should  not  be  formed  from  the  things  themselves,  but  from 
the  conceptions  of  things  as  formed  in  the  child's  own  mind ; 
otherwise  he  will  understand  nothing.  Now  the  concep- 
tions the  child  forms  to  himself  of  things  are  in  themselves 
accurate  (he  makes  mistakes  only  in  the  words  he  applies 
to  them) ,  but  imperfect,  and  therefore  they  are  continually 
being  altered  and  corrected.  For  example  :  the  child  forms 
his  conceptions  of  a  plant  from  seeing  it  growing  in  the 
ground,  from  its  green  color,  from  the  common  form  of 
plants,  from  the  cool,  damp  feeling  of  the  leaves,  etc.  This 
is  not  and  cannot  be  expected  to  be  the  conception  of  the 
philosopher ;  but  it  is  this  childish  conception,  or  rather  this 
conception  proper  to  the  age  in  which  it  is  formed,  that  we 
should  start  from,  and  connect  with  it  the  classification  of 


124  ON   THE    liULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

plants.  The  specific  abstraction  of  a  plant  in  the  minds  of 
our  little  pupil  will  then  he  ' '  that  which  is  planted  in  the 
ground  and  grows." 

The  specific  abstraction  of  the  plant  itself  will,  on  the 
other  hand,  be  to  the  mind  of  the  philosopher  "an  organized 
body  without  senses  or  contractility,  which  develops  from 
a  germ,  absorbing  and  assimilating,  under  given  favorable 
external  conditions,  molecules  of  a  difterent  kind."  The 
classification  of  plants  to  which  the  child's  mind  should  be 
led  must  in  no  case  rest  upon  this  definition,  which  the 
child  could  not  understand,  but  must  be  constructed  on  the 
conception  proper  to  his  degree  of  intelligence. 

Hence  it  would  be  a  blunder  to  classify  plants  for  him  by 
seeding  and  germination.  He  does  not  want  a  classification 
of  that  which  germinates  j  but  of  that  iiMch  is  planted  in  the 
ground  and  groivs, 

201.  Moreover,  the  abstract  qualities  on  which  the  vari- 
ous classes  are  founded  must  be  such  as  do  not  exceed 
the  degree  of  intelligence  the  child's  mind  has  attained,  and 
they  should  also  furnish  the  stimulus  which  shall  rouse  and 
attract  his  attention ;  this  being  the  second  condition,  as  •we 
have  pointed  out,  of  his  understanding  what  we  want  to 
teach.  That  stimulus  is  to  be  found  in  the  sensible  char- 
acters of  the  object,  and  especially  the  larger  and  more 
striking,  so  that  they  imprint  themselves  on  his  senses,  on 
his  imagination,  and  his  memory.  These  characters,  con- 
sisting in  sensible  qualities,  bring  the  full  conception  {uni- 
versal^ not  abstract)  nearer  to  the  abstract  conception,  and 
thus  form  the  semi-abstractions j  as  we  have  called  them, 
which  are  best  adapted  to  the  childish  mind. 

The  whole  classification  of  roses,  which  we  gave  as  an  ex- 
ample (21-34),  is  founded  on  these  semi-abstractions;  in 
other  words,  it  is  an  abstraction  the  ground-idea  of  which  is 
a  specific  semi- abstract  idea  (the  specific  idea  of  the  rose). 


ORDER   OF    CLASSIFICATION.  125 

202.  Indeed,  if  we  consider  all  the  classifications  that  can 
be  made  of  non-sensitive  things,  —  which  is  as  much  as  to 
say  all  physical  systems,  —  we  find  them  founded  on  a 
specific  abstract  idea,  that  is,  the  idea  of  corporeal  sub- 
stance. All  the  infinite  scale  of  subdivisions  of  this  sub- 
stance is  no  other  than  a  scale  of  semi-abstract  ideas,  which 
descends  to  the  first  step,  the  full  idea  (idea  of  the  universal 
but  not  abstract  individual),  which  is  the  boundary  of  the 
ideal  world.  Wliolly  outside  of  that  remains  the  subsistence 
of  things,  which  constitutes  the  world  of. reality. 

The  conclusion  from  this  is,  that  the  order  to  be  observed 
in  teaching  the  child  the  more  or  less  common  nanries  of 
things,  must  follow  the  classification  which  descends  from 
the  specific  abstract  idea,  through  the  semi-abstract  ideas, 
to  the  actually  subsisting. 

CHAPTER    V. 

EDUCATION   OF     THE   ACTIVE    FACULTIES    IN    THE    THIRD   PERIOD 
OF   CHILDHOOD. 

ARTICLE    I. 

DIFFICULTY  OF    DETERMINING  WHICH   SHOULD  BE  THE  NEGATIVE  AND  WHICH 
THE  POSITIVE  PART  OF  EDUCATION. 

203.  One  of  the  difficulties  which  the  educator  has  to 
solve  is  to  determine  which  are  the  things  in  each  of  the 
periods  of  childhood  which  the  child  should  do  for  himself, 
and  which  should  be  done  for  him  by  the  teacher.  Undoubt- 
edly the  child's  nature  acts  beneficially,  and  the  educator 
should  respect  this  action,  and  beware  of  interrupting  or 
disturbing  it.  It  is  no  easy  task  to  discern  it  and  the  wis- 
dom of  its  ends  ;  and  it  is  only  the  few  who  feel  how  relig- 
iously it  should  be  respected.  We  are  always  wanting  to 
do  too  much ;  we  form  opinions  with  presumptuous  haste  ; 
and,  strong  in  our  self-confidence,  we  fancy  we  can  easily 


126  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOt). 

do  better  than  nature,  and  think  with  a  schoolmaster's  rod 
to  teach  and  improve  our  great  mother. 

Nature,  working  in  the  child,  is  forever  producing  peace, 
serenity,  order,  due  development  of  all  the  faculties.  The 
educator  often  enough  fails  in  producing  these  results  of 
which  nature  has  the  secret,  and  by  his  positive  action  pro- 
duces their  contraries,  ^.  e.  agitation,  disturbance,  disorder, 
perplexity,  confusion  in  the  mental  processes  which  hinder 
and  clash  with  one  another. 

204.  This  important  consideration  supplies  us  with  cer- 
tain general  rules  of  infant  education  :  here  are  some  which, 
although  I  have  mentioned  them  already,  can  never  be  too 
often  repeated. 

(1)  The  child  should  not  be  disturbed  when  it  is  quiet 
and  contented. 

(2)  In  order  to  avoid  the  chance  of  irritation,  it  should 
be  occupied  rather  with  things  than  persons,  for  the  former 
are  never  indiscreet,  and  do  not,  by  their  interference,  alter 
and  disturb  the  child's  natural  mode  of  action. 

(3)  When  it  is  tired  of  things,  then  is  the  time  for  per- 
sons to  come  to  its  assistance. 

(4)  The  persons  who  are  about  the  child  should  be  sin- 
cerely genial  and  kind.^ 

(5)  They  should  not  excite  the  child  either  physically  or 
morally  by  over-fondling  or  play ;  it  is  better  for  him  to  be 
left  to  amuse  himself,  with  passive  rather  than  active  things. 

I  am  not  sure  that  the  rule  in  English  nurseries,  of 
always  speaking  low  to  children,  is  a  good  one.^  The  low 
voice  is,  of  course,  less  exciting,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it 

1  "Rien  n'egale,"  observes  Mad.  Necker,  "la  froideur  des  enfants  pour  les 
demonstrations  hypocrites."  — L.  II.  c.  iii. 

2  Note  of  Translator. — Does  such  a  rule  exist?  Is  it  not  rather  the  rule  Ros- 
mini  himself  would  lay  down,  that  loud,  harsh  sounds  must  be  avoided  in  speak- 
ing to  infants  ?  He  may  have  gained  the  idea  from  the  naturally  quieter  demeanor 
and  lower  tone  of  voice  of  English  people,  as  compared  with  Italians. 


EDUCATION    POSITIVE   AND    NEGATIVE.  127 

is  an  excessive  application  of  the  principle  that  the  child 
should  not  be  startled  or  shocked,  and  that  it  is  an  attempt 
to  go  beyond  Nature  herself  in  this  matter.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  hold  it  to  be  of  the  highest  use  to  observe  the  fol- 
lowing rule :  Let  the  child  hear  only  sweet,  well-modulated 
voices,  with  a  good  intonation,  and  then  it  will  not  matter  if 
they  be  high  or  low.  Its  own  voice  is  high-toned  by  nature ; 
why  should  it  be  injured  by  the  high  tones  of  another  ?  It 
is  the  harsh,  the  dry,  the  false,  the  discordant,  the  violent 
which  ctisturbs,  distracts,  and  irritates  it,  not  the  natural, 
ordinary  sounds,  high  or  low.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  it 
to  be  a  useful  practice  for  the  child,  as  I  said  before,  to  let 
it  hear  the  whole  scale  of  sounds  and  their  concords  in  due 
order. 

ARTICLE    II. 

DIFFICULTY    OF    DETERMINING    HOW    MUCH    THE    TEACHER    SHOULD    GIVE    THE 
CHILD  AND   HOW  MUCH   HE  SHOULD  REQUIRE  FROM  HIM. 

205.  It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  education  cannot  be 
altogether  negative :  the  teacher  must  make  it  positive  in 
some  directions. 

In  the  first  place,  all  but  those  who  choose  to  flatter 
human  nature  must  recognize  that  it  is  defective,  and  often 
enough  manifests  evil  inclinations.  The  will  of  man  yields, 
at  first,  spontaneously  to  the  natural  disposition,  good  or 
evil,  which  shows  that  it  also  is  a  mixture  of  both. 

Undoubtedly  art  must  come  in  to  remedy  the  defects  of 
nature  and  will ;  to  anticipate  them,  to  keep  away  tempta- 
tion and  bring  about  occasions  of  right  action.  Divine  provi- 
dence, by  ordering  that  man  should  be  born  into  a  society, 
made  him  dependent  upon  his  fellow-creatures,  that  they 
might  help  his  weakness,  guide  his  ignorance,  correct  his 
wrong  tendencies.  Education,  therefore,  must  have  its  posi- 
tive side  ;  but  what  does  that  consist  of  ?    How  far  does  it 


128  ON"   THE    RULING   rRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

extend?  What  is  its  part  at  each  period  of  man's  life? 
These  are  new  problems  of  immense  difficulty  to  be  resolved, 
—  problems  which  in  practice  will  receive  infinitely  various 
solutions  according  to  the  circumstances  of  tlie  pupil,  which 
are  themselves  difficult  to  know  completely  and  certainly. 

206.  It  may  be  laid  down  in  general,  tliat  the  positive 
portion  of  intellectual  and  moral  education  should  be  least  in 
the  earliest  period  of  infancy,  and  go  on  enlarging  with  each 
successive  period ;  but  what  is  the  law  which  governs  this 
continual  extension?  In  a  w^ord,  what  are  its  limits  at  each 
period?  The  answer  to  these  questions  must  be  arrived  at 
by  manifold  experiments  and  observations,  —  which  are  now, 
.thank  Heaven  !  beginning  to  be  made,  —  and  it  is  high  time 
that  the  art  of  experiment  and  observation  should  be  applied 
to  education.  Meanwhile,  we  must  be  content  to  point  out 
the  way,  — more  than  that  we  frankly  confess  ourselves 
unable  to  do, — and  shall  begin  by  laying  down  a  self- 
evident  principle  on  which  our  subsequent  reasonmg  will  be 
based. 

This  self-evident  principle  is,  that  we  cannot  require  from 
the  child  what  is  impossible  to  him,  but  only  what  he  can 
do.  We  must  find  out,  then,  what  it  is  he  can  do  at  each 
stage  of  life  :  this  is  the  difficult  point  to  determine. 

M.  Naville  admitted  that  here  w^as  the  knot  of  the  whole 
question  as  regards  the  education  of  the  child's  intellectual 
faculties  ;  ^  but  the  case  is  the  same  as  regards  his  active 
and  moral  faculties.  We  must  always  know  what  we  can 
exact  from  the  will  of  the  child ;  to  require  more  than  this  is 
unfair  to  him. 

1  "  Here  lies  the  difficulty:  to  distinguish  accurately  what  should  be  given  to 
the  child  and  what  demanded  from  him  ;  and  here  also  lies  the  merit  of  the 
teacher,  and  the  condition  of  his  success.  If  you  teach  your  pupil  what  he  could 
find  out  for  himself  by  a  fair  expenditure  of  time  and  labor,  you  dull  his  intellect; 
if  you  refuse  to  give  him  the  facts  needful  to  him,  and  guidance  in  using  them 
properly,  you  hinder  his  first  steps,  oblige  him  to  lose  time  in  fruitless  efforts,  and 
discourage  him."  — De  V Education  Fublique,  pp.  106, 107. 


MISTAKES   OF   TEACHERS.  129 

207.  Now,  as  regards  the  understanding,  the  very  object 
of  this  work  is  to  determine  with  precision  the.  gradual 
processes  of  the  child's  mind,  so  as  to  know  what  can  be 
expected  of  it  at  each  period  of  childhood.  The  will  follows 
the  steps  of  the  understanding,  and  it  would  be  manifestly 
unreasonable  to  require  that  the  child  should  will  a  good  or 
fly  from  an  evil,  both  of  which  are  as  yet  unknown  to  him. 
Yet  this  is  what  educators  are  very  apt  to  do :  they  want  the 
child  to  think  as  they  think,  to  will  as  they  will,  to  act  as 
they  act ;  or,  rather,  they  want  him  to  think,  will,  and  act 
as  they  see  that  it  is  proper  to  think,  will,  and  act. 

The  injustice  of  such  teachers  arises  from  their  ignorance. 
They  have  made  for  themselves  rules  of  action,  and  pretend 
that  the  child  shall  observe  the  same  rules.  Where  this  pre- 
tension is  too  obviously  absurd,  they  reduce  it  only  so  far 
as  to  say  that  the  child  has  no  rule  of  action  because  he  has 
not  yet  arrived  at  the  use  of  reason.  This  is  going  from 
one  extreme  to  the  other.  The  child,  indeed,  has  not  the 
same  rule  of  action  as  the  adult,  and  it  is  gross  injustice  to 
require  it  of  him.  But  it  is  no  less  an  error  to  say  that  he 
has  no  rules  :  he  has  Ms  oivn  ;  and  our  business  is  to  guide 
him  by  these,  and  not  by  ours.  It  is  true  that  he  appears 
incapable  of  understanding  our  rules,  when  we  put  them 
l)efore  him ;  but  to  infer  from  that  the  absence  of  any 
rule  of  mental  action  would  be  a  great  mistake.  It  is  our 
fault  that  we  are  unacquainted  with  this  rule,  —  that  we  have 
failed  to  observe  and  note  it.  The  child,  certainly,  does  not 
possess  rules  in  any  abstract  form ;  but  his  mind  quickly 
sets  them  for  itself,  and  it  is  this  process  of  formation  which 
should  be  the  object  of  the  educator's  study,  while  it  is  just 
this  which  has  hitherto  been  altogether  neglected.  It  has 
not  even  been  suspected  that  such  mental  rules  were  formed 
in  the  earliest  period  of  infancy. 

208.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  child,  from  the  earli- 


130  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

est  stage  of  intelligence,  perceives  sensitive  and  intelligent 
being,  as  he  also  perceives  the  object  which  is  beautiful  in 
his  eyes.  Here  we  have  the  source  of  the  two  primordial 
guides  of  his  mental  action,  which  his  affections  will  follow. 
He  will  soon  love  the  sensitive,  intelligent  being,  and  admire 
the  beautiful  object.  His  affection  and  his  admiration  fol- 
low the  earliest  light  of  his  understanding :  the  moral  action 
is  born  immediately  of  the  intellectual  one. 

It  will  help  us  to  observe  that  these  two  effects  of  admira- 
tion and  affection  are  not  so  distinct  as  they  seem  in  the 
child's  mind.  In  fact,  what  he  really  loves  is  the  heaittifal ; 
it  is  this  that  he  admires,  and  therefore  loves  it :  admi- 
ration is  that  first  appreciation  which  is  the  cradle  of 
love.  I  admit  that  he  sees  a  real  difference  between  his 
mother's  face  and  the  button  shining  in  the  light ;  but  that 
is  a  real  and  specific  difference  only  on  the  supposition  we 
made,  that  souls  interact  on  each  other  through  the  medium 
of  living  -bodies.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  already  seen 
that  the  child  gives  a  soul  to  the  shining  button  and  to  all 
other  things,  and  therefore  he  not  only  admires  but  loves  it. 
So  true  is  it  that  the  child  loves  that  which  he  has  first 
admired ;  that,  in  baby  language,  pretty  means  equally 
lovable^  and  ugly^  unlovable.  Those  two  words  have  a  most 
extensive  meaning  for  infants.  This  is  equally  proved  by 
an  observation  which  has  been  already  made,  that  little  chil- 
dren show  compassion  only  towards  the  things  they  con- 
sider pretty,  and  that  their  hearts  harden  against  the  things 
which  seem  to  them  ugly.-^ 

209.  In  the  second  period,  the  standards  which  guide  the 
child's  affections  assume  another  form.  The  words  pretty  and 

1  "  Tout  ce  qui  deplait  h.  Tenfant,"  says  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  "  endurcit 
son  ame.  Quand  un  animal  blesse  est  joli,  on  lui  voit  partager  vivenient  sa  souf- 
france;  s'il  est  laid,  il  s'en  detourne  avec  horreur.  Sa  compassion  s'evanouit  aus- 
sitot  que  certains  defauts,  tels  que  la  dilTormite  ou  le  ridicule,  lui  font  dedaigner 
de  s'associer  k  I'etre  souffrant."  — L.  III.  c.vi. 


THE    child's   type   OF    GOODNESS.  131 

ugly^  good  and  had^  etc.,  having  been  continually  heard  by 
him,  he  is  no  longer  affected  only  by  what  is  pretty  and  ugly, 
but  already  a  certain  type  of  goodness  and  beauty  is  formed 
in  his  mind,  and  he  is  moved  by  this  abstraction ;  by  it  he 
understands  and  loves  absent  objects  which  are  good  and 
beautiful ;  he  desires  and  learns  to  seek  them,  while  exactly 
the  contrary  process  takes  place  as  regards  evil  ones. 

It  is  true  that  this  abstract  standard,  this  first  type  of 
good,  is  still  closely  bound  to  the  object,  and  at  first  is  no 
more  than  the  sound  of  the  word  associated  with  various 
objects,  of  which  his  memory  retains  the  perception  and  the 
image ;  but,  little  by  little,  it  becomes  a  real  semi-abstract 
idea,  i,  e.  an  idea  composed  of  the  imaginal  ideas  of  the 
objects  seen.  This  semi-abstract  idea,  type  of  the  beautiful 
and  the  good,  is  the  nearest  to  the  objects  after  the  imaginal 
ideas,  so  that,  guided  by  its  standard,  the  mind  has  but  a 
step  to  make  to  arrive  at  the  objects  themselves.  Hence 
the  child's  affections,  under  its  impulse,  retain  much  of  the 
eagerness  and  impetuosity  of  their  earliest  manifestations.^ 
He  does  not  as  yet  seek  by  a  variety  of  means  to  attain  the 
desired  object,  but  springs  to  grasp  it  at  once. 

210.  Now  this  type  of  good,  thus  formed  by  the  child  so 
early  as  the  second  order  of  cognitions,  and  becoming  his 
rule  of  action,  is  different  in  form  from  the  rule  supplied  to 
him  by  Nature  herself  in  the  earlier  stage  of  his  mental  life  ; 
but  at  bottom  it  is  the  same.  It  is  the  good  and  the  beauti- 
ful that  the  child  admires  and  loves  at  both  periods  alike  ; 
but  in  the  first,  he  loves  and  admires  the  good  and  beautiful 
objects  ;   in  the  second,  he  begins  to  love  the  good  and  the 

1  These  primitive  desires  are  so  violent,  that  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure  recom- 
mends that  children  should  not  be  allowed  to  see  the  preparations  for  their  meals, 
lest  this  should  excite  them  too  much.  Ce  sera  par  consequent  nne  attention  salu- 
taire  que  (Veviter  de  les  rendre  temoins  des  preparatifs  de  feurs  repas.  Le  disir 
aiguise  par  la  vue  de  Vohjet  qui  pent  Vapaiser,  devient  chez  eux  d'une  vivacite 
douloureuse.  La  certitude  que  ce  desir  sera  satis/ait  ne  les  calme  point,  et  V exper- 
ience est  alors  plutot  une  peine  qu'un  plaisir  pour  eux.  —  L.  II.  c.  iii. 


132  ON    THE    IIULING    PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

beautiful  iu  the  objects.  The  good  aud  the  beautiful  are 
presented  to  his  mind  in  a  new  form ;  but  his  will,  in  both 
cases,  has  the  same  object. 

This  identical  object,  this  goodness  and  beauty,  on  which 
the  affections  of  tlie  infant  are  fixed,  remains  the  constant 
object  of  human  affections  throughout  the  life  of  man,  in  the 
period  of  his  greatest  vigor  and  intellectual  development, 
as  in  the  decline  of  his  faculties  in  age  ;  and  towards  it  he 
breathes  his  last  dying  sigh,  and  hopes  to  attain  it  in  eter- 
nity. But  if  the  object  remains  fundamentally  the  same,  the 
mode  of  conceiving  it  is  by  no  means  the  same,  and  thus 
the  acts  of  the  will  are  modified  by  the  form  in  which  the 
understanding  presents  the  good  and  the  beautiful. 

211.  That  form  changes  with  each  order  of  cognitions. 
But,  as  besides  this  advance,  which  consists  in  passing 
from  one  stage  of  cognition  to  another,  there  is  also  a  second 
progress  which  takes  place  within  each  stage  of  cognition, 
and  demands  no  small  amount  of  time,  so  the  type  of  the  good 
which  governs  the  will  retains  the  force  proper  to  a  given 
order  of  cognition,  while  becoming  amplified  and  perfected. 
The  arduous  task  imposed  on  the  educators  of  youth,  is  to 
follow  these  mutations  of  form  from  one  period  to  another, 
together  with  the  steps  of  its  development  within  each  period. 
For  it  is  this  type  in  the  child's  mind  at  each  stage  of  its 
existence  which  they  must  make  use  of  to  guide  its  moral 
progress.  And  they  must  demand  from  it  neither  more 
nor  less  than  this :  that  it  shall  follow  the  rule  of  good- 
ness which  nature  has  formed  within  it,  and  not  any 
other.  To  demand  no  exercise  of  virtue  from  the  chikl  is 
educational  indolence  arising  from  ignorance ;  to  demand 
that  he  shall  be  virtuous,  according  to  a  standard  as  yet 
unknown  to  him,  is  a  pedantic  absurdity,  the  tyranny  of  peda- 
gogues. It  must  entail  violence,  ill-humor,  blind  anger  in 
the  teacher,  which  will  be  the  only  things  his  unhappy  disciple 


THE  child's  mokal  kule.  133 

will  learn  of  him.  It  follows  that  the  child  must  always  be 
considered  as  a  moral  being,  for  such  he  always  is  ;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  the  form  and  nature  of  his  morality  at  each 
stage  of  childhood  has  to  be  investigated,  and  herein  lies 
the  secret  of  child-nature,  to  be  fathomed  only  by  arduous 
study,  by  observation  and  profound  meditation. 

ARTICLE    HI. 

WHAT  IS  THE  MORAL  RULE   OF   THE   CHILD  ARRIVED    AT    THE    SECOND    ORDER 
OF  COGNITIONS? 

212.  Having  arrived  at  the  second  order  of  cognitions  in 
the  child,  we  have  also  pointed  out  what  form  his  morality 
can  take. 

He  has  an -idea  of  goodness  apart  from  subsistent  objects, 
though  one  or  other  of  the  latter  is  constantly  associated 
with  it.  That  idea  is  not  only  apart  from  subsistent  objects, 
as  are  all  imaginal  ideas,  but  it  is  also  different  from  the 
latter.  For  imaginal  ideas  faithfully  represent  the  object  as 
it  appears  to  the  senses  ;  but  the  idea  of  goodness  expresses 
none  of  the  indifferent  or  bad  parts  of  the  object,  but  only 
the  element  which  is  good  ;  as  the  idea  of  badness,  leaving 
aside  the  good  or  indifferent  parts,  retains  only  the  element 
which  is  bad.  This  idea  of  goodness  or  badness,  therefore, 
is  not  only  universal  as  are  all  imaginal  ideas,  but  it  is  in 
so  far  abstract,  that  it  fixes  attention  solely  on  one  deter- 
mination, on  a  single  quality  of  the  object,  apart  from  all 
others. 

But  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad  to  a  child  whose  devel- 
opment has  attained  only  to  the  second  order  of  cognitions  ? 

The  abstractions  through  which  a  child  at  that  stage  has 
arrived  at  the  idea  of  good  and  evil  can  have  been  derived 
only  from  his  perceptions  of  sensible  objects  and  their 
imaginal  ideas  :  for  his  mind  contains  nothing  else  capable 
of  attracting  his  attention.     Language,  *also,  the  instrument 


134  ON    THE    liULING   PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

by  which  he  has  accomplished  the  great  work  of  abstract- 
ing from  the  objects  perceived,  imagined,  ideated  by 
him,  the  good  or  evil  element  in  them,  has  continually 
directed  liis  attention  to  sensible  objects  by  the  continual 
repetition  he  hears  from  his  mother  and  nurse  of  the  words 
in  reference  to  them :  "  This  is  good,  this  is  not  good,  this 
is  bad." 

The  good  and  the  bad,  then,  of  which  the  child  forms  an 
idea,  are  a  goodness  and  a  badness  presented  to  him  by  his 
senses. 

213.  This  goodness  and  badness  have  in  them  both  a  sub- 
jective and  an  objective  element. 

The  objective  element  belongs  to  the  intellect,  and  is  the 
beautiful  and  admirable  in  the  object  which  the  child  so 
admires  and  loves.  As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  closer 
observation  proves  that  the  child  from  the  beginning  judges 
everything  to  be  alive.  But  this  judgment,  by  which  the  child 
holds  everything  to  be  living,  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  conjecture  I  made  above,  that  beings  really  living  ex- 
ercise upon  him  an  influence  coming  from  their  souls,  and 
passing  into  his  soul,  although  in  both  cases  through  the 
medium  of  the  body.  Should  this  action,  as  yet  little  noticed 
by  philosophers,  be  ascertained  and  verified  as  a  fact,  its 
effect  on  the  child  must  be  classed  as  a  feeling^  and  not  con- 
founded with  the  judgment  formed  by  the  child  himself. 
The  latter  may  be  mistaken ;  the  feeling  is  always  real. 
The  child  may  act  both  on  the  one  and  the  other.  Feeling, 
until  it  is  perceived  by  the  intellect,  has  only  a  subjective 
existence.  Hence,  in  the  goodness  perceived  by  the  child 
there  is  a  double  subjective  element,  ^.  e.  the  corporeal  sensa- 
tion and  the  animastic  sentiment  (feeling  of  the  soul) . 

214.  From  this  analysis  of  goodness,  as  understood  by 
the  child,  arises  the  question  whether  the  objective  element 
enters  into  his  idea  of  it,  as  well  as  the  subjective.     This  is 


HOW    THE    IDEA   OF    GOOD    IS   FORMED.  135 

an  important  question  in  determining  the  state  of  the  child's 
mind  and  soul  with  regard  to  the  good,  and  to  answer  it  we 
must  recall  two  principles  already  laid  down  : 

(1)  That  the  child's  attention  is  primarily  excited  solely  by 
external  stimuli ;  its  spontaneous  action  is  always  towards 
external  objects,  and  turns  inward  to  the  subject  only  later, 
and  when  constrained  to  do  so  by  special  causes  (98,  188). 

(2)  That  in  its  primary  perceptions  the  intellectual  subject 
affirms  only  an  entity,  but  not  the  qualities  or  determinations 
of  such  entity,  which  it  is  satisfied  to  have  in  feeling ;  and 
not  till  afterwards,  and  little  by  little,  according  as  it  is 
impelled  by  its  necessities,  does  it  direct  attention  to  these 
sensible  determinations  of  the  entity   (109  and  foil). 

Now,  it  is  evident  that,  to  form  an  idea  of  goodness,  we 
must  previously  have  some  perceptions  of  what  is  good  ;  for 
every  such  idea  is  a  concept-idea.^  The  perceptions,  there- 
fore, from  which  the  idea  of  goodness  is  worked  out,  however 
imperfectly,  must  be,  not  simple  perceptions  affirming  only 
being,  but  perceptions  somewhat  elaborated  which  affirm 
also  the  good  in  being. 

But  to  affirm  this  good,  to  affirm  a  good  being,  is  to  affirm 
an  object ;  and  simply  to  affirm  an  object,  without  going 
further,  is  an  infinitely  easier  and  more  spontaneous  process 
for  the  human  mind  than  to  affirm  itself  as  subject,  and  by 
so  doing  change  the  subject  into  an  object  of  the  intellect. 
Previous  to  the  third  period  of  childhood,  there  is  nothing 
to  impel  man  to  turn  his  mental  activity  in  a  direction 
so  opposed  to  the  natural  one,  or  to  force  it,  from  the 
straight  line  of  advance  it  has  taken,  to  retrace  its  steps, 
and  fall  back  upon  itself,  upon  the  subject  whence  it  ema- 
nates. We  shall  speak  further  on  of  self-kncfvv^ledge,  and 
show  how  late  it  is  manifested  in  the  child  ;  yet,  until  he  has 

1  I  call  a  concept-idea  that  which  gives,  besides  being,  some  determination  of 
the  mode  of  being. 


136  ON    THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

arrived  at  it  he  cannot  attribute  the  subjective  element  to 
himself. 

215.  But  admitting  this,  may  he  not,  nevertheless,  per- 
ceive this  element?  Assuredly  he  does,  for  otherwise  he 
could  not  abstract  ttie  idea  of  good  from  his  perception  ;  but 
he  does  not  recognize  it  as  subjective;  he  perceives  it  as  a 
simple  object.  Hence  his  own  pleasures,  his  own  pains, 
which,  in  so  far  as  they  are  feelings,  exist  in  the  subject, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  observed  and  perceived  by  his  under- 
standing, are  objects,  are  qualities  and  properties  of  real 
entities  perceived  by  his  intellect.  All  the  affections  of 
admiration  and  love,  of  disgust  and  aversion,  manifested  by 
the  child  are  directed,  not  to  the  pleasure  and  pain  he  feels  in 
himself,  but  to  pleasant  or  painful  objects  :  it  is  in  these  that 
he  sees  the  seat  of  his  pleasure  or  his  pain.  Although  what 
he  feels  is  internal  to  the  sense,  yet  it  is  external  to  the 
intellect,  and  it  is  long  ere  the  intellect  restores  its  pleasures 
to  the  subject. 

The  effects  produced  by  pleasure  and  pain  are  produced 
equally  by  all  sensations  which  come  to  man  through  his 
external  organs.  The  intellect,  the  law  of  which  is  to  con- 
ceive everything  objectively,  sees  the  primary  sensations,  ^.  e. 
color,  taste,  smell,  etc.,  in  the  objects  whose  being  it  affirms 
in  its  first  perception,  and  thus  affirms  because  of  the  action 
they  exercise  on  the  senses.  This  is  the  reason  why  mankind 
in  general  regard  as  qualities  of  bodies  these  modifications 
of  their  own  feelings ;  and  it  is  only  through  deep  and  as- 
siduous philosophical  reflection  that  we  succeed  in  completely 
dissipating  this  error,  and  stripping  external  forms  of  the 
borrowed  vestments  in  which  our  childhood  clothed  them, 
adorned  theifi,  giving  them,  as  it  were,  flesh  and  blood.  And 
verily  these  forces,  so  denuded  by  the  inexorable  thouglit  of 
the  philosopher,  remain  dry  skeletons,  I  had  almost  said,  — - 
thin,  imperceptible  ghosts,  and  nothing  more. 


WHAT    IS    THE    CHILD'S    MORAL    VIRTUE?  137 

216.  From  these  observations  follows  the  singular  conse- 
quence that  the  child  vvlio,  in  his  animal  life,  acts  wholly 
subjectively,  begins  with  his  human  life  to  act  on  objective 
motives,  long  before  either  his  intellect  or  his  will  has  learnt 
to  recognize  and  love  that  w^iich  is  subjective,  that  which 
can  be  referred  to  himself.  For  his  infant  intelligence  does 
not  see  those  same  sensible  things  which  properly  belong  to 
the  subject,  as  such,  but  contemplates  and  loves  and  hates 
them  as  so  many  objects. 

Hence,  it  has  been  justly  observed  that  children  show  an 
admirable  disinterestedness  in  things  which  they  do  under 
the  influence  of  pleasure  and  pain ;  and  it  is  the  error  of 
those  who  are  incapable  of  observing  human  nature  to 
assert  that  self-love  is  the  first  of  the  affections  to  manifest 
itself.^  The  authoress  we  have  so  often  quoted  says,  with 
delicate  observation,  that  the  child  "too  deficient  in  fore- 
thought to  let  himself  be  the  slave  of  his  wants,  has  the 
mania  and  sometimes  the  pride  of  independence,  and  though 
he  receives  everything  at  our  hands,  his  affection  yet  wears 
an  air  of  disinterestedness." 

217.  If,  then,  we  proceed  to  deduce  from  all  this  what 
is  the  moral  virtue  of  the  young  child,  we  shall  find  that  it 
consists  wholly  in  benevolence^  for  this  benevolence  is  objec- 
tive and,  therefore,  impartial,  disinterested,  and  preceded  by 
esteem  for  the  object  loved.  It  is,  indeed,  no  other  than  the 
benevolence  to  which  the  virtue  of  man  in  all  periods  of  life 
may  be  reduced ;  for  goodness  is  love.^  From  this  we  per- 
ceive that  the  difference  between  the  virtue  of  the  child  and 
that  of  the  man  (leaving  merit  aside),  does  not  consist  in 

1  We  must  distinguish  the  animal  and  instinctive,  from  intelligent,  actions.  I 
have  shown  that  it  is  equally  a  mistake  to  attribute  the  animal  actions  to  self- 
interest,  or  to  call  them  disinterested.  The  truth  is,  that  such  action  is  neither 
interested  nor  disinterested,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  action  of  feeling  in 
general.  See  Storia  Comparativa  de"  Sisttml  Morali,  c.  iv.  art.  4,  Compara- 
tive History  of   Moral   Systems. 

2  This  truth  follows,  as  it  seems  to  us,  manifestly,  from  all  we  have  written  on 
morals. 


138  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

the  one  being  benevolence  and  the  other  not,  since  both  are 
equally  benevolence,  but  in  the  different  object  of  this  benev- 
olence ;  for  this  object  expands  in  proportion  to  age  and  the 
progress  of  knowledge. 

218.  It  has  been  already  shown  that  the  object  of  benevo- 
lence or  love  can  be  no  other  than  a  good.  What  good, 
then,  can  be  known  to  the  child  who  has  reached  only  the 
seconi  order  of  cognitions  ? 

If  these  cognitions  have  no  other  object  than  sensible 
things,  it  is  clear  that  he  will  love  what  his  senses  repre- 
sent to  him  as  beautiful  and  lovable,  —  food,  light,  the  smil- 
ing countenance  of  another  human  being :  these  and  such  as 
these  are  the  elements  from  which  he  gathers  his  conception 
of  good  which  afterwards  governs  all  his  affections.  He 
finds  and  recognizes  the  good  in  all  that  causes  him  pleasur- 
able sensations,  and  he  loves  it  all  with  effusive  and  impar- 
tial affection.  That  is  his  moral  rule  :  it  is  not  ours,  indeed, 
but  for  him  it  is  the  right  one  and  the  only  one  possible. 
If  we  do  not  disturb  his  inward  processes,  he  will  fol- 
low it  with  simplicity  and  entire  loyalty ;  he  is  just  in  his 
dealings,  though  w^ithout  knowing  it ;  his  morality  exists, 
although  as  yet  he  has  attained  no  consciousness  of  it. 

ARTICLE    IV. 

CAN  THE  MORALITY  OF  THE    CHILD  BE   INJURED  WHILE    HE    IS    STILL   IN   THE 
SECOND  STAGE  OF  COGNITIONS? 

219.  The  child  whose  understanding  has  reached  the 
second  grade  of  cognitions  may  injure  his  morality  in  two 
ways  : 

(1)  By  forming  for  himself  false  rules  regarding  good 
and  evil. 

(2)  By  not  faithfully  guiding  his  affections  and  actions  by 
the  rule  of  good  and  evil  which  he  has  rightly  formed. 

220.  If  we  suppose  the  child  to  be  uninfluenced  by  other 
persons,  he  could  not  form  a  false  rule,  unless  his  primary 


MORALITY   IN    THE    SECOND    STAGE   OF   COGNITIONS.      139 

perceptions  had  shown  him  good  objects  as  bad  and  bad 
as  good  ;  for  it  is  from  these  perceptions  that  he  afterwards 
gains  the  conceptions  of  good  and  evil  on  which  his  rule 
is  formed.  But  this  is  impossible,  for  perception  follows 
sensation,  and  sensation  cannot  err.-^ 

The  child,  however,  is  not  thus  left  to  himself ;  his  con- 
ceptions are  abstractions  which  he  forms  by  tlie  help  of  the 
language  he  learns  from  those  around  him.  It  is  true  that 
he  could  not  be  altogether  misled  by  those  who  first  speak 
to  him  ;  for,  if  they  always  called  that  good  which  his  senses 
taught  him  was  bad,  he  would  end  by  understanding  the 
word  ''good"  to  signify  "bad,"  and  "bad"  to  signify 
"  good  "  ;  his  mistake  applying  only  to  words,  not  to  things. 
But  if  the  child  is  thus  safe  from  error  when  first  learning  to 
speak,  will  he  retain  the  same  immunity  when  he  has  gained 
the  use  of  a  larger  vocabulary  ?  Suppose  that  to  the  words 
"good "  and  "bad "  he  attaches  a  right  meaning, — within,  of 
course,  the  limits  of  his  experience  of  good  and  evil,  —  will 
he  not  soon  fall  into  the  errors  of  those  around  him?^  If, 
when  he  has  learned  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"  bad,"  he  is  told  that  that  is  bad  which  is  good,  will  he  not 
end  by  believing  it?  His  senses  tell  him  the  contrary,  in- 
deed ;  but  is  it  true  that  at  that  age  he  trusts  altogether  his 
own  senses,  his  own  experience? 

221.  This  is  certain,  that,  besides  the  senses  and  the  intel- 
ligence, the  faculty  for  persuasion  ^  awakens  very  early  in  the 

1  In  the  New  Essay,  No.  1246,  I  showed  that  perceptions  and  the  primary  ideas 
are  given  by  nature  independently  of  human  will,  and  are,  tiierefore,  free  from 
error. 

2  It  will  be  objected  that,  in  that  case  the  child  must  have  passed  to  the  third 
grade  of  cognitions;  but,  on  further  consideration,  it  will  appear  that  this  is  not  a 
necessary  consequence,  for  the  conception  of  good,  so  long  as  it  is  derived  imme- 
diately from  perceptions  or  imaginal  ideas,  is  always  the  result  of  cognitions  of  the 
second  order. 

3  See,  in  the  Synoptical  Table  of  the  Faculties  of  the  Human  Mind,  at  the  end 
of  the  third  book  of  the  Anthropology,  the  place  of  persuasion, — a  faculty  so  im- 
portant and  so  overlooked  by  philosophers. 


140  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

child,  and  one  of  its  functions  is  voluntary  belief,  voluntary 
adhesion  to  the  affirmation  of  others. 

Not  only  have  we  the  power  to  believe  voluntarily  what 
is  told  to  us  by  others,  but  we  .are  naturally  inclined 
to  it,  and  this  is  the  reason  of  the  harm  done  to  children  by 
the  evil  they  hear.  Even  when  the  evil  spoken  of  is  of  a 
kind  which  as  yet  offers  no  temptation  to  a  child,  he  ac- 
cepts it  readily  from  the  pure  need  of  believing,  of  being 
in  unison  with  the  feeling  of  others.  This  tendency  shows 
itself  visibly  in  the  earliest  stage  of  infancy,  and  wonder- 
fully helps  the  infant  to  understand  its  mother's  speech.  It 
follows  that  truthfulness  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  edu- 
cator, from  the  very  earliest  words  spoken  to  a  baby  in  its 
cradle. 

In  fact,  if  a  child's  teachers  do  not  invariably  call  that 
good  which  is  good  to  him,  he  will  find  a  discrepancy  be- 
tween that  which  he  feels  through  his  senses  and  that  which 
is  affirmed  to  him  by  others.  His  two  faculties  of  feeling 
and  believing  will  thus  be  placed  in  contradiction  to  each 
other,  and  nothing  so  delays  and  hinders  his  development  as 
this  contradiction,  causing  a  struggle  between  his  faculties, 
the  one  destroying  what  the  other  is  striving  to  build  up. 
The  poor  infant  does  not  know  which  side  to  take,  nor 
whether  he  is  deceived  by  his  faculty  of  sense  or  that  of 
belief  ;  his  mind  is  confused  ;  he  loses  the  power  to  form  any 
steady  opinion  concerning  the  merits  of  things,  and,  till  he 
has  decided  for  the  one  faculty  or  the  other,  he  remains 
in  a  state  of  useless  uncertainty  and  disturbance.  Far  from 
making  progress,  he  loses  for  a  long  while  the  calmness, 
clearness,  and  order  which  are  the  indispensable  conditions 
of  progress.  Even  when  he  has  chosen  which  of  the  con- 
tending faculties  he  will  adhere  to,  he  will  have  no  firm  faith 
in  it ;  he  will  believe  in  it  half  liesitatingly  ;  this  will  lead  to 
weakness  of  character,  to  the  want  of  strong  impressions,  of 


NEED   OF   TRUTHFULNESS.  141 

large  and  simple  feelings,  and  of  the  decided  activity  which 
is  their  result.  If  he  relies  upon  the  opinions  of  others, 
rejecting  the  testimony  of  his  own  feeling,  he  loses  the  sure 
guidance  of  the  latter,  and  it  may  be  predicted  that  he  will 
turn  out,  at  best,  a  light-minded  man.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  holds  to  his  own  feeling  and  rejects  the  authority 
of  others,  in  so  doing  he  sows  the  seeds  of  distrust  towards 
his  fellow-men,  and,  after  a  rebellious  youth,  he  will  reap  in 
his  later  years  the  fruits  of  discord,  of  selfishness,  and  of 
an  inexplicable  malignity. 

It  is,  then,  of  the  first  importance  to  education  at  that 
age  that  speech  should  always  be  exact  and  truthful,  and  in 
unison  with  the  best  feelings  of  the  child. 

Tlie  child  who  is  led  by  others  to  form  false  and  imper- 
fect conceptions  of  good  will  assuredly  derive  from  them 
false  and  imperfect  rules  of  morality.  Yet  the  child  is  not 
guilty  of  immorality  in  thus  yielding  to  the  deception ;  for 
he  does  not  wilfully  despise  or  wrong  others,  nor  does  he 
hate  them ;  he  only  adheres  to  one  or  the  other  faculty, 
in  the  impossibility  of  holding  to  both,  and  his  choice 
between  them  is  not  arbitrary,  but  guided  by  his  inclination 
to  one  or  the  other.  We  must  distinguish,  however,  between 
immorality  and  the  inclination  to  immorality.  The  false 
conceptions  and  false  standards  of  the  child  are  not  in 
themselves  immoral,  but  produce  a  disposition  to  immorality 
in  the  time  to  come. 

222.  We  have  another  question  to  consider,  whether  the 
child  who  has  reached  the  second  grade  of  cognitions  always 
follows  his  own  rules  of  good  and  evil,  or  occasionally  de- 
parts from  them  wilfully.  To  this  we  answer,  that  he  will 
always  follow  them  faithfully,  and  could  not  depart  from  them 
before  having  reached  the  third  grade  of  cognitions.  For, 
after  he  has  formed  his  rule  of  good  and  evil,  he  must, 
to   depart  from   it,  form   a  practical   judgment,  that  what 


142  ON    THE   RULING   PEINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

he  had,  by  tliat  rule,  held  to  be  good,  is  evil,  which  sup- 
poses a  new  reflection.  Of  this  we  shall  speak  in  the  next 
section. 

ABTICLE    V. 

HOW  TO    MAKE    USE   OF   THE    CHILD'S    FACULTY    OF   BELIEF,   TO    INCLINE    HIM 
TO    MORAL    GOODNESS. 

223.  It  must  always  be  borne  in  mind,  that  every  form 
of  moral  goodness  is  a  form  of  benevolence,  and  all  moral 
evil  is  only  hate,  or  a  limit  put  upon  benevolence. 

Now  the  educator  has  two  offices  to  perform  as  regards 
the  benevolence  of  the  child  :  1.  To  inspire  it ;  2.  To  guide 
it  properly.^ 

The  first  of  these  offices  is  as  important  as  the  second  ; 
for  the  sum  of  benevolence  evolved  from  a  human  soul  is 
the  material  of  which  its  virtue  will  be  composed.^  He  who 
has  a  large  amount  of  benevolence  will  easily  become  a 
virtuous  man. 

Let  us  consider,  first,  how  to  develop  the  benevolence  in 
the  child,  and  next  how  to  direct  it. 

224.  In  the  two  earlier  periods  of  infancy,  the  child,  who 
can  as  yet  neither  speak  nor  form  abstract  conceptions,  can 
be  moved  to  benevolence  only  through  the  pleasurable  sensa- 
tions he  receives  from  external  objects.  As  we  have  al- 
ready said,  to  keep  the  child  habitually  tranquil,  serene,  and 
happy,  opens  his  heart  to  benevolent  feelings. 

When,  however,  he  has  reached  the  third  period,  it  is 
time  that  his  teacher  should  employ  language  as  a   means 

1  If  we  consider  the  matter  attentively,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  disorder  which 
limits  benevolence.  Universal  benevolence,  on  the  contrary,  is  ordered  benevo- 
lence. To  prove  this  is  the  object  of  my  book  entitled  Storia  delV  Amore,  "  His- 
tory of  Love. " 

2  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure  properly  reproves  mothers  for  the  jealousy  with 
which  they  keep  away  inferiors  whom  they  consider  as  rivals  in  the  affections 
of  their  children  :  "  C'est  mal  entendre  leur  ]jropre  inUrH,^^  she  says,  "  les  affec- 
tions se  transplantent  plus  ais^ment  qu'elles  ne  croissent ! '^ 


CULTIVATION   OF   BENEVOLENCE.  143 

to  the  same  end,  and  this  is  made  easy  by  the  faculty  of 
persuasion,  so  early  manifested  in  children,  not  only  through 
the  action  of  perception,  but  also  through  that  oi  faith. 

Those  who  have  to  educate  the  child,  or  simply  talk  to 
him,  should  as  a  rule,  therefore,  frequently  praise  the  things 
that  are  good,  and  very  seldom  blame  the  bad  ones,  about 
which  it  is  better  to  be  silent ;  in  other  words,  great  use 
should  be  made  of  the  epithets  pretty^  goody  right ,  and  as 
little  as  possible  of  the  contrary  ones,  ugly^  bad^  wrong ^ 
etc.  To  apply  the  latter  to  persons  would  be  a  very  serious 
error.  ^ 

The  child,  thus  hearing  only  the  praises  of  things  as 
good  and  pretty,  and  never  blame,  will  have  his  benevolent 
affections,  which  necessarily  follow  his  thoughts,  more  rap- 
idly developed  than  the  contrary  ones  of  malevolence ;  his 
love  and  gratitude  will  flow  towards  all  that  surrounds  him. 
It  is  scarcely  possible  to  find  anything  which  cannot  in 
some  one  aspect  be  presented  to  him  as  good  and  beautiful, 
and  therefore  lovable. 

ARTICLE    VI. 

OTHER    MEAIfS    TOWARDS    THE    SAME    END. 

225.  By  the  time  the  child  begins  to  understand  the 
conventional  signs  of  words,  he  also  understands  the 
natural  signs  of  action  and  gesticulation.  This  natural 
language  helps  him  to  learn  the  conventional  one,  and  vice 
versa:  the  two  are  learned  together  as  one  and  the  same.^ 

1  As  the  child,  according  to  my  belief,  takes  all  things  equally  to  be  persons, 
there  is  the  more  reason  for  being  careful  not  to  speak  ill  of  anything  before 
him. 

2  Sometimes  the  child  in  the  second  period  will  reproduce  action  and  gesture 
through  his  instinct  of  imitation.  It  may  be  also  that  some  animastic  (soul)  feeling 
mingles  with  his  perceptions.  But  such  actions  and  gestures  influence  him  more 
powerfully,  when  he  attributes  a  moaning  to  tliem  and  they  become  to  him  a  lan- 
guage.   For  this  reason  I  have  reserved  mention  of  them  till  now. 


144  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

When  the  actions  and  gestures  express  feelings,  the  latter 
awake  in  him  at  sight  of  the  former,  whether  through  some 
animastic  influence,  or  through  the  instinct  of  imitation  lead- 
ing him  to  reproduce  the  gestures  which  are  naturally  asso- 
ciated with  such  feelings,  or  whether  both  these  causes  unite 
to  form  that  wonderful  sympathy  which  is  shown  by  children. 
But  in  the  third  period  not  only  is  he  thus  moved,  but  the 
acts  and  gestures  have  become  to  him  real  signs  which 
reveal  to  him  the  inward  feelings  of  those  who  use  them. 

Let  me  be  permitted  to  refer  again  to  the  observations 
of  another  writer  :  — 

"  The  same  faculty,  already  manifested  at  seven  weeks  old,  is 
at  the  end  of  a  year  greatly  developed.  At  that  age  a  lively  and 
therefore  forward  child  can  read  the  expression  of  faces.  You  will 
see  him  reproducing  all  the  changes  of  your  own  mood :  he  does 
not  know  whence,  comes  your  change,  and  yet  he  shares  it  with 
you,  and,  remaining  a  stranger  to  all  the  causes,  he  associates  him- 
self with  all  the  effects.  He  is  a  mirror  reflecting  with  marvellous 
fidelity  your  moral  condition. 

"I  will  quote,  a^  an  example,  a  fact  I  witnessed  in  a  still 
younger  child,  only  nine  months  old.  He  was  happily  playing  on 
his  mother's  knee,  when  a  woman  came  into  the  room  whose  face 
wore  a  look  of  marked,  though  quiet,  sadness.  The  child's  atten- 
tion was  attracted  by  this  person,  whom  he  knew,  but  had  no 
special  affection  for.  Little  by  little  his  face  changed ;  he  let  fall 
his  toys,  and  finally  clung  crying  to  his  mother's  breast.  What 
he  felt  was,  not  fear  or  pity  or  affection :  he  simply  suffered,  and 
relieved  his  pain  by  tears. 

''  Li  the  same  way  a  child  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  months  old,  if 
present  when  some  serious  reading  is  going  on,  and  all  the  faces 
around  him  express  a  certain  solemnity  of  feeling,  is  generally 
subdued  into  respect,  —  a  fact  which  explains  how  the  religious 
sentiment,  apparently  so  above  the  capacity  of  children  of  tender 
years,  can  yet  awaken  very  early  in  those  young  souls.  An  im- 
pression, at  first  objectless,  but  not  without  analogy  to  the  solemn 
emotion  accompanying  sincere  worship,  is  connnunicated  to  the 


CULTIVATION    OF   BENEVOLENCE.  145 

child  through  sympathy.  He  feels  himself  in  a  holy  place;  the 
idea  of  something  sacred  gradually  dawns  upon  his  mind,  and, 
when  soon  after  he  hears  God  named  as  the  invisible  object  of 
our  eternal  adoration,  the  conception  of  a  hidden  power  is  not 
a  strange  wonder  to  him :  he  believes  himself  to  have  felt  the 
solemn  influence  cf  its  presence."  ^ 

We  are  bound  to  avail  ourselves  of  these  facts. 

226.  We  must  also  take  care  that  even  the  natural 
language  of  signs  shall  communicate  to  the  child  only 
gentle  and  reverent  thoughts.  They  will  grow  up  within 
him,  if  everything  he  sees  and  hears  tends  to  manifest 
and  inspire  them. 

We  may  convince  ourselves,  on  the  same  grounds,  of  the 
hurtful  influence,  on  the  tender  soul  of  the  little  child,  of 
external  signs  of  anger,  envy,  hate,  malignity,  scorn,  etc. 
They  are  to  him  so  many  corrupting  words,  whence  he  derives 
endless  contamination.  Equally  hurtful  to  him  is  the  influ- 
ence of  terror,  of  sudden  fright  caused  by  words  or  actions  ; 
but  so  much  has  been  said  on  this  head  by  others  that  I 
need  not  insist  upon  it.  I  will  only  point  out,  as  before, 
that  Nature  should  be  our  mistress  in  education,  and  that,  if 
we  observe  her,  we  shall  find  that  she  always  disposes  the 
child  to  hope  and  cheerfulness,  and  keeps  off  sad  and  fearful 
thoughts.  Children  never  invent  for  themselves  gloomy,  sad, 
or  painful  fancies  ;  their  imaginations  are  always  bright, 
joyous,  gay.  This  holds  good  not  of  childhood  only :  it 
is  the  constant  law  of  human  nature.  Why,  then,  do  we 
not  aid  this  natural  disposition?  Why  do  we  not  try  to 
follow  Providence,  by  whom  that  nature  was  constituted, 
and  avoid  saddening  and  terrorizing  the  spirit  which  it 
impels  to  hope  and  courage? 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  II.  c.  iv. 


146  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOB. 

ARTICLE    VII. 

ON  RESISTANCE,  CONSIDERED  IN  RELATION   TO  THE  THIRD  PERIOD  OF 
CHILDHOOD. 

227.  But,  we  may  ask,  is  not  fear  also  a  natural  affection 
of  the  human  soul,  and  why  is  it  placed  there  ?  The  answer 
is,  that  man  may  also  be  restrained  within  the  limits  of  duty 
by  the  fear  of  a  higher  power,  —  that  through  this  fear,  he 
may  be  made  to  feel  his  own  weakness  in  comparison  with 
the  power  without  him,  which  is  the  power  of  the  Creator,  or 
of  those  who  do  the  Creator's  will.  Such  fear  as  this  is  not 
needed  by  the  infant,  who  would  be  incapable  of  recognizing 
it  as  the  minister  of  divine  justice ;  and  the  fantastic  terror 
we  might,  in  our  folly,  inspire  in  the  childish  mind  would  have 
no  moral  character,  but  be  only  a  blind  dread,  confusing, 
instead  of  directing,  its  action.  As  to  the  sense  of  its  own 
weakness,  it  is  but  too  strong  already,  and  the  reverential 
fear  towards  the  Supreme  Being  can  be  excited  in  it  only  by 
the  idea  of  a  supremely  good  being,  and  in  no  other  way. 

228.  Having,  then,  excluded  the  agency  of  fancifully 
excited  fears  on  the  mind  of  the  little  child,  we  have  still 
to  inquire  whether  we  ought  to  resist  his  inclinations,  and 
if  so,  to  what  extent? 

In  the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  when  he 
wishes  for  something  injurious  to  health,  he  must  be  resisted  ; 
but  it  should  be  in  such  a  manner  as  to  give  him  as  little 
pain  as  possible  ;  and  the  best  rule  is  to  manage  things  so 
as  to  prevent  such  wishes  from  arising.  They  are  physical, 
not  moral,  and  it  would  be  unjust,  therefore,  not  to  use 
the  gentlest  means  of  eluding  them.  But,  besides  this  physi- 
cal disturbance,  he  may  very  possibly  show  inclinations  of 
an  immoral  kind.  In  treating  of  the  resistance  we  must 
oppose  to  these,  we  shall  arrive  at  the  answer  to  the 
question  proposed  above, — What  are  the  means  of  regulat- 
ing the  child's  benevolence? 


REGULATION   OF   THE    CHILD'S    AFFECTIONS.  147 

§  1. — Exercise   of  patience  wJiich   may  he   required  of  the 

child, 

229.  One  of  the  earliest  anti-moral  inclinations  exhibited 
by  children  is  impatience,  although  this  is  due  rather  to 
habit  than  anything  else.  A  certain  exercise  of  patience 
should  be  required  of  them,  but  very  delicate  treatment  is 
necessary  here.  We  will  quote  a  mother's  advice  with 
regard  to  it ;  — 

"  So  long  as  the  child  is  playing  contentedly,  you  may  go  on 
with  your  own  occupations.  A  look,  a  sign  of  intelligence  from 
time  to  time,  is  enough  to  make  him  feel  you  are  watching  over 
him;  and  his  sense  of  safety  from  it  is  perfect.  Never  let  him 
find  himself  deceived  in  this.  If  pain  should  come  on,  or  if  his 
inward  activity  should  begin  to  flag,  so  that  he  can  no  longer 
throw  himself  into  the  things  around  him,  go  to  him.  Yet  do 
not  hurry  and  try  to  give  him  occasion  for  a  slight  exercise  of 
patience ;  make  him  learn,  if  you  can,  the  meaning  of  the  word 
Wait,  If  that  word  is  made  to  signify  to  him  invariably  a  sacred 
promise,  it  will  acquire  by  degrees  a  great  value  in  his  mind ;  he 
will  come  to  understand  that  he  is  to  receive,  but  not  to  exact, 
and  this  will  make  him  more  grateful  and  affectionate."  ^ 

The  patience  thus  required  is  not  physical  suffering,  which 
the  child  should  always  be  spared,  but  moral  suffering,  if 
indeed  it  can  be  termed  suffering,  and  it  trains  both  the 
understanding  and  the  moral  nature.  He  waits  cheerfully, 
and  thus  already  begins  to  regulate  his  affections. 

§  2.  —  Correction  of  the  child^s  conceptions, 

230.  Feeling  is  by  its  nature  impatient.^  To  wait  pa- 
tiently is  always  an  exercise  of  intelligence. 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  II.  c.  iii. 

2  On  the  diverse  characteristics  to  be  observed  in  the  action  of  feeling  and  in 
that  of  intelligence,  see  Delia  Society  ed  il  suo  Jine,  "  Society  and  its  End," 
B.  ni.  c.  V, 


148  ON    THE    KULING    PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

The  impatience  of  feeling  in  man  is  not  in  itself  a  moral 
evil ;  but  it  is  a  bad  preparation  for  morality,  and  we  should 
]>egin  in  good  time  to  overcome  it.  Anger  is  also  an  im- 
pulse of  feeling,  and,  in  so  far  as  it  is  such,  it  is  only  an 
evil  inclination.  As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  care 
should  be  taken  to  prevent  anything  that  might  give  birth 
to  it  in  the  child. 

These  passions,  and  others  of  which  we  shall  speak  pres- 
ently, manifest  themselves  in  earliest  infancy ;  for  at  that 
age  the  strength  of  sensual  action  is  great.  They  require, 
therefore,  to  be  met  wisely  by  moral  rather  than  physical 
resistance. 

231.  The  passions  act  powerfully  on  the  will,  and  the 
latter  on  the  understanding,  so  that  the  understanding  pro- 
nounces that  to  be  good  which  favors  the  passions,  and 
that  to  be  bad  which  opposes  them.  It  follows  that,  if 
passions  awaken  in  the  child  and  destroy  his  state  of 
tranquillity,  his  conceptions  will  be  falsified ;  for  his  stand- 
ard of  good  will  no  longer  be  his  natural  feeling  and  healthy 
instinct,  but  a  passionate  desire  and  a  corrupted  instinct. 
The  falsity  of  his  conceptions  of  good  and  evil  in  things 
is,  indeed,  unobserved  ;  but,  in  the  mean  while,  these  form  the 
child's  rule  of  action,  and  he  loves  wrongly  and  hates  what 
he  should  love.  Such  seeds  of  error  in  judgment  and  feel- 
ing are  small  as  the  mustard-seed,  but  grow  silently  into  a 
branching  tree ;  from  them  come  those  youths  with  an  in- 
explicably cold  and  evil  temper ;  from  them  men  thoroughly 
bad  and  incorrigible.  The  fate  of  men  too  often  depends  on 
these  un watched  beginnings. 

To  rectify  these  false  conceptions  in  the  child,  we  must 
sometimes  ward  off,  and  sometimes  resist,  his  passion.  It  is 
a  great  mistake  to  flatter  him,  as  is  often  done,  by  way  of 
giving  him  pleasure  ;  it  is  an  equal  mistake  to  confirm  him 
in  his  false  conceptions,  instead  of  replacing  them  by  truer 


CORRECTION  OF  FALSE  CONCEPTIONS.        149 

ones ;  above  all,  we  must  struggle  against  those  amongst 
them  which  inspire  him  with  feelings  of  aversion  and  lead 
him  to  form  unfavorable  judgments.  Our  aim  should  be 
to  make  him  see  the  good  in  things,  and  although  he  can, 
at  that  age,  see  only  the  good  and  evil  presented  to  him 
by  his  senses,  yet  we  can  tell  him  that  those  things  are 
good  which  will  be  good  for  him  in  the  future,  and  there- 
by facilitate  the  act  of  his  understanding,  by  which,  later 
on,  he  will  verify  our  judgment.  We  can  do  this,  as  we 
have  ah'eady  pointed  out,  by  availing  ourselves  of  his  faculty 
of  belief. 

§  3.  —  Rectification  of  had  feelings, 

232.  Impatience  and  anger,  which  have  their  source  in 
the  animal  nature,  and  which,  while  confined  to  that,  are 
only  anti-moral  predispositions,  easily  gain  the  assent  of 
the  will,  and  then  pass  into  immoral  actions  and  habits. 

The  feeling  of  aversion  which  also  takes  its  rise  in  the 
animal  nature  quickly  passes  into  the  region  of  the  under- 
standing and  is  transmuted  into  hate.  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  human  mind  at  that  tender  age  is  susceptible  of  the 
passion  of  envy,  which  is  grief  at  the  happiness  of  others. 

The  fact  related  by  St.  Augustine  of  the  infant  sucking 
at  one  breast  looking  askance  at  its  foster-brother  sucking 
at  the  other  (which  is  not  an  unfrequent  one),  bears  the 
appearance  of  envy,  but  I  should  consider  it  simply  a  case 
of  aversion.  We  may  see  the  same  thing  in  animals.  Two 
dogs  eating  out  of  the  same  platter  growl  and  snap  at 
each  other.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  this  is  the  effect 
of  the  displeasure  each  feels  at  the  good  of  the  other, 
but  arises  rather,  in  my  opinion,  from  the  fear  each  feels 
that  the  other  will  hinder  and  lessen  his  own  good.  The 
animal,  through  the  unitive  power  in  him,  not  through 
intelligence,  may  perfectly  become  aware  of  the  lessening 


150  ON    THE    RULING    FEINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

of  the  food,  and  he  hates  that  lessening,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  tlie  other  dog  which  he  associates  with  it  in  his  fancy. 
The  same  animal  operation  takes  place  in  the  infant ;  but 
later  on,  when  the  judgment  of  the  understanding  or  only 
the  act  of  the  will  is  superadded  to  it,  it  is  transformed 
into  real  hatred. 

233.  Great  care  should  be  taken  to  prevent  any  occasion 
of  such  feelings,  in  infants  who  are  unable  to  bear  the 
strength  of  the  temptation  and  have  no  arms  wherewith 
to  resist  it.  If  we  perceive  them  to  have  taken  an  aver- 
sion to  any  one,  we  should  do  our  utmost  to  remove  it, 
and  the  most  efficacious  way  of  doing  this  is  to  make  the 
obnoxious  persons  the  means  of  giving  them  some  pleasure 
they  desire  ;  their  personality  will  then  cease  to  be  obnox- 
ious, and  the  child  will  lose  its  dislike. 

§4.  —  Removal  of  the  limits  too  easily  set  to  the  benevolent 
affections, 

234.  It  is  a  phenomenon  difficult  to  explain,  why  the 
child,  and  indeed  the  human  being  generally,  though 
benevolent  by  nature,  gradually  limits  his  affections  to  a 
certain  circle  of  persons  and  things. 

There  seems  no  doubt  that  the  new-born  infant  makes 
no  difference  between  persons ;  or  at  any  rate,  that  he 
shows  affection  to  any  one  who  supplies  his  wants  and 
caresses  him.  Thus,  he  often  cares  more  for  his  nurse 
than  his  mother,  if  he  is  more  accustomed  to  tlie  former, 
and  if  she  performs  the  mother's  office  towards  him.  Nor 
does  he  show  any  preference  as  to  who  shall  be  his  nurse, 
but  loves  the  one  that  is  given  to  him,  and  at  six  weeks 
old  smiles  impartially  back  to  whatever  feminine  face  smiles 
first  at  him.  The  inclination  to  benevolence  is  thus  general 
in  the  infant,  so  long  as  it  remains  passive ;  but,  so  soon 
as  it  becomes   active,  it  assumes  a  limited   and  exclusive 


EXPLANATION    OF    SHYNESS.  151 

form.  At  one  year  old  the  child  already  feels  unpleasantly 
impressed  by  new  faces,  and  this  dislike  which  he  takes  to 
strangers  goes  on  increasing  with  his  years  up  to  a  certain 
age :  he  becomes  timid,  shy,  rude  ;  shrinking  from  them, 
and  taking  a  long  time  to  get  used  to  them.  How  is  this 
phenomenon  to  be  explained  ?  I  believe  that  several  causes 
concur  in  producing  it,  and  it  is  perhaps  difficult  to  trace 
them  all. 

235.  In  the  first  place,  the  rational  affections  are  gov- 
erned by  the  intelligence  which  supplies  their  objects.  Now, 
in  the  sphere  of  intelligence  we  must  note  the  phenomenon 
of  attention,  which  is  a  concentration  of  the  scattered  forces 
and,  at  first,  inactive  powers  of  the  mind,  bringing  them  to 
bear  all  together  on  a  single  point,  a  single  object.  The 
mind,  when  it  has  thus  fixed  its  attention  on  one  object, 
has  no  more  to  spare  for  others ;  it  takes  no  account  of 
them,  or  at  best  a  very  slight  one.  Now  this  concentration 
of  faculty  in  intelligence  takes  place  also  in  the  will.  The 
latter,  so  long  as  its  action  is  slack  and  divided,  remains 
indifferent  among  the  various  objects  present ;  but,  so  soon 
as  it  is  concentrated  and  applied  to  one,  or  to  a  given  circle 
of  objects,  all  others  cease  to  exist  for  it ;  its  whole  dis- 
posable amount  of  benevolence,  so  to  speak,  being  already 
absorbed  and  exhausted  by  those  it  has  selected. 

236.  These  facts  would  be  sufficient  to  explain  vrhy  the 
child  who  has  become  attached  to  one  set  of  persons  and 
things  should  be  cold  and  indifferent  to  others.  But  this 
is  not  the  whole  state  of  the  case.  As  he  grows  older, 
the  child  is  not  only  indifferent  to  persons  he  is  not  in 
the  habit  of  seeing,  but  he  is  startled  and  alarmed  by 
their  appearance.  He  shrinks  from  their  approach  to  him, 
and  shows  himself  disturbed,  angry,  and  hostile  to  them. 
How  are  we  to  account  for  this?  We  will  try  to  point 
out    some   of   the   principal   causes   which   seem   to  us  to 


152  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

concur  in  producing  this  condition,  without,  however,  feel- 
ing sure  that  we  have  exhausted  them  all. 

It  seems  probable  that,  when  the  human  heart  has  no  more 
benevolence  to  dispose  of,  it  retains  the  contrary  affections, 
fear,  ill-will,  aversion,  in  a  state  of  extreme  susceptibility.^ 
To  the  child  who  has  no  more  affection  to  give  them,  hi^; 
fellow-creatures  appear  mysterious  beings,  from  whom  he 
expects  no  good  and  whose  power  he  fears :  not  being 
beautified  by  affection,  —  for  it  is  love  only  that  makes 
objects  fair  and  sweet  to  us,  —  they  become  obnoxious  to 
his  mind,  which  is  uncertain  as  to  their  good  or  evil  nature. 
Others  have  already  observed  that  a  new  idea  presented  to 
a  child's  mind  produces  something  of  the  same  kind  of 
alarm.  If  this  effect  follows  from  a  new  idea,  it  is  yet 
more  likely  to  follow  a  new  perception,  where  the  latter  is 
not  softened  and  disguised  by  a  yet  stronger  feeling  of 
affection. 

237.  To  this  we  may  add  another  physiological  law,  ^.  e. 
that  man  is  always  unwilling  to  retrace  his  steps  either  in 
thought  or  in  affection ;  to  undo  the  acts  of  his  intellectual 
and  moral  faculties  in  order  to  re-enact  them  differently. 
It  is  easy  to  convince  ourselves  of  this  by  the  following 
experiment  on  children:  Tell  them  a  story,  and  they  will 
delight  in  it ;  but  woe  to  you  if  in  telling  it  the  second 
time  you  alter  the  least  circumstance,  or  even  add  one  ! 
They  correct  you  at  once,  and  insist  upon  having  precisely 
the  same  representation.  Whj?  Because  that  representa- 
tion being  vividly  impressed  upon  their  minds,  they  cannot 
bear  to  spoil  or  efface  that  beautiful  imaginary  picture,  to 
paint  it  over  again.  The  same  thing  happens  with  the  will 
of  children  as  with  their  fancy  and  understanding.  Unlike 
adults,  who  always  reserve  a  certain  portion  of  their  affec- 
tions for  the  new  objects  which  may  prove  deserving  of 
*  See  Storia  dell*  Amove,  L.  I.  c.  ii. 


UNWILLINGNESS   TO    KEFORM   CONCEPTIONS.  153 

them  in  future,  cliildren  never  think  of  the  future,  of  which 
as  yet  tliey  have  no  conception,  and  pour  out  on  the  first 
objects  of  tlieir  affection  the  whole  treasure  of  their  love. 
I  have  already  spoken  of  the  vehemence  and  singleness  of 
childish  passions  (158-162).  This  being  premised,  it  is 
evident  that  a  new  person  appearing  before  them  naturally 
invites  their  affection ;  but,  to  give  it,  they  must  first  with- 
draw some  portion  previously  disposed  of  elsewhere  and 
bestow  it  on  this  new  object.  Now  this  is  peculiarly  ob- 
noxious to  them  for  two  reasons :  first,  because  they  would 
have  to  go  back  on  a  benevolent  action  already  accom- 
plished, so  as  to  diminish  it ;  and,  secondly,  because  they 
do  not  see  how  their  affection  can  be  withdrawn  from  the 
things  they  love.  Would  it  not  be  wronging  them?  How 
can  they  begin  to  love  less  those  to  whom  they  have  given 
all  the  love  they  have?  By  what  fault  have  they  ceased 
to  deserve  it?  Children  are  susceptible  of  a  feeling  similar 
to,  and  yet  opposed  to,  jealousy.  As  the  jealous  person 
suffers  and  is  irritated  by  the  fear  of  being  robbed  by 
another  of  the  affection  of  the  loved  one,  so  the  child  is 
the  lover  fearing  lest  his  own  affection  for  his  loved 
one  should  be  stolen  or  diminished,  and  refusing  to  give 
it  up.  This  affection  of  the  child  is  not  given  to  persons 
only,  but  to  everything  about  him ;  and  this  explains  why 
changes  in  the  circumstances  and  order  of  his  life  annoy 
him  so  much,  and  put  him  out  of  temper. 

238.  There  is  a  third  reason  following  from  the  second, 
which  is  bound  up  in  the  phenomenon  we  are  endeavoring 
to  explain.  The  child's  first  instinct  is  to  avoid  pain  ;  the 
second,  to  enjoy  in  peace  his  own  well-being ;  his  nature 
is  full  of  pleasure,  because  full  of  life  and  sensibility. 
Moreover,  when  he  has  distributed  all  his  affections  among 
the  tMngs  and  persons  with  whom  he  finds  himself,  he  has 
marked  out  in  his  thoughts  the   sphere   of   his   happiness. 


154  ON    THE    KULING   PEINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

There  lie  all  his  joys,  and  he  cannot  imagine  any  others. 
What  wonder,  then,  if  he  is  jealous  of  such  a  domain? 
A  new  object  introduced  into  it  is  a  break  in  that  whole 
which  forms  his  state  of  existence,  and  which  he  perceives 
as  one  thing :  it  spoils  his  infant  paradise,  in  which  he 
cannot  bear  any  change,  any  more  than  in  the  story  which 
is  told  to  him.  We  may  trace  an  affinity  between  this 
tendency  of  children  and  the  instinct  and  idea  of  prop- 
erty which  awakens  so  early  in  their  minds.  All  the 
things  about  them  become,  by  the  unitive  force  of  their 
feelings,  a  part  of  themselves,  and  to  take  away  any  one 
is  a  violence  done  to  them.  This  phenomenon  may  be 
observed  in  animals  also ;  for  it  is  an  effect  of  the  unitive 
force  which  belongs  to  their  nature  as  to  man's,  and  it 
has  the  appearance  of  the  thought  and  love  of  property, 
which  it  is  not.  The  idea  of  property  follows  it,  however, 
as  I  have  said.  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure  relates  having 
seen  a  little  girl  of  eighteen  months  cry,  if  any  one  touched 
her  nurse's  work-basket.  "One  day,"  she  adds,  "the 
same  child,  seeing  a  strange  woman  carry  away  a  dress 
of  her  mother's,  began  to  scream  violently.  The  same 
thing  happened  the  next  day ;  and,  from  that  time,  she 
showed  uneasiness  at  the  sight  of  strangers,  and,  when  they 
went  away  empty-handed  she  would  accompany  them  to  the 
door  with  a  politeness  which  showed  how  great  was  her 
relief  at  their  departure."^ 

239.  There  is,  finally,  a  fourth  and  deeper  cause  which 
I  believe  to  have  a  large  share  in  the  limitation  of  children's 
affections  at  a  certain  age,  and  that  is  the  special  nature 
of  their  attachment  to  actual  individual  objects.  There  are, 
in  fact,  two  forms  common  to  every  entity :  the  ideal,  which 
is  the  principle  of  universality  ;  and  the  real,  which  is  the 
principle  of  individuality.     To  these  two  forms  of  the  entity 

1  B.  III.  c.  i. 


NATURE    OF   AFFECTION   FOR   OBJECTS.  155 

correspond  in  us  two  powers  :  that  of  intellect^  through  which 
we  have  the  intuition  of  the  ideal ;  and  feeling^  which  con- 
stitutes all  reality.  The  reality  of  feeling  is  subsequently 
confirmed  by  our  judgment,  which  is  a  third  power.  In  the 
intellectual  order,  then,  the  intellect  gives  us  the  idea  and 
judgment  gives  us  the  thing  {res) .  Then  follows  the  will, 
going  out  with  its  affections  towards  both  the  idea  and  the 
thing ;  for  it  may  find  its  term  in  both  forms  of  being.  If, 
then,  we  love  any  object  for  its  good  qualities,  we  love  it  in 
and  for  its  ideal  form ;  but  if  we  love  an  object  for  itself, 
and  not  only  for  its  qualities,  we  love  it  in  its  reality.  The 
idea  being,  as  we  have  said,  the  principle  of  universality, 
our  love  is,  in  the  first  case,  universal  also,  and  therefore 
ready  to  turn  to  whatever  other  objects  possess  the  same 
gifts  and  qualities  on  which  alone  it  is  fixed.  The  real^  on 
the  contrary,  being  the  principle  of  the  particular,  our  love 
for  it,,  in  the  second  case,  is  particular  and  exclusive, 
and  refuses  any  other  object,  solely  because  it  is  another, 
though  it  may  have  the  same  good  qualities  as  the  first. 
This  second  kind  of  love  is  the  principle  of  restriction  and 
limitation  of  benevolence,  and  its  nature  is  anti-moral  where 
it  does  not  find  its  term  in  the  divine.  Self-love  is  of  this 
second  kind :  we  love  ourselves,  not  for  the  good  qualities 
we  possess,  but  because  we  are  ourselves.  Parental  affection 
is  of  the  same  character.  What  father  or  mother  would  take 
an  angel  of  goodness  and  beauty  in  exchange  for  their  own 
ugly,  ill-conditioned  offspring?  They  want  their  own,  and 
love  it  personally  above  all  others.  Physical  love  is  a  third 
example  of  the  same  species  :  lovers  care  only  for  the  one 
person  to  whom  they  have  devoted  themselves,  and  demand 
a  similar  love  in  return :  hence  their  jealousy,  which  is  the 
fear  lest  the  individual,  personal  love  of  their  loved  one 
should  be  drawn  away  by  an  ideal  love,  i.  e.  love  of  the  good 
qualities  of  others.     In  children,  the  love  which  rests  on  the 


156  ON   THE    KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

good  qualities  of  the  thing  or  person  (ideality)  is  intimately 
bound  up  with  that  which  is  given  to  the  actual  thing  or 
person,  and  easily  degenerates  into  a  love  in  which  the  latter 
element  (that  is,  love  of  the  real  individual)  prevails  and 
holds  dominion.  In  proof  of  this  I  will  quote  the  following 
incident  related  by  an  acute  observer :  "A  little  girl  let  fall 
her  beloved  doll,  which  unfortunatel}^  broke  its  nose.  Screams 
and  utter  despair  followed,  which  were  increased  by  the  im- 
prudence of  her  father,  who,  taking  the  matter  too  lightly, 
half  in  joke  and  half  in  attempting  to  mend  the  unhappy 
nose,  melted  it  away  altogether,  leaving  only  an  immense 
hole  in  its  place.  This  threw  the  child  into  such  a  passion  of 
mingled  grief  and  anger  that  she  nearly  went  into  convulsions. 
Those  about  her  did  their  best  to  comfort  and  quiet  her  by 
promising  that  the  doll  should  be  taken  away  and  cured,  and 
at  last  the  weary  child  was  got  off  to  sleep.  While  she  slept 
a  new  head  was  bought  and  put  on  the  doll,  in  the  belief 
that  this  would  make  her  quite  happy  on  waking.  But, 
on  the  contrary,  her  grief  became  more  violent  than  ever, 
and  assumed  a  touching  tenderness.  She  was  no  longer  the 
little  fury,  but  a  true  mother  to  whom  they  had  dared  to  offer 
another  child  in  the  place  of  her  own.  She  could  scarcely 
speak  for  sobs.  'Oh,  it  is  not  —  it  is  not  my  doll !  I  knew 
her,. —  I  don't  know  this  one  !  Do  they  think  I  am  going 
to  love  it  ?  .  .  .  Take  it  away  !  I  won't  look  at  it  again  !  "  ^ 
Every  mother,  or  other  person  accustomed  to  watch  chil- 
dren, will  bear  witness  to  similar  facts,  proving  that  their 
affection  is  given,  not  to  the  good  qualities  in  an  individual, 
but  to  the  reality  of  the  actual  person.  True  it  is  that  this  love 
has  its  origin  also  in  the  ideal  and  universal  love  ;  that  is,  in 
the  love  of  good  qualities,  real  or  supposed ;  for  the  human 
heart  can  begin  to  love  only  sub  specie  boni,  but  later  on  it 
degenerates  and  becomes  corrupted  :  it  substitutes  the  person 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.  c.  v. 


REALISTIC    AND    IDEAL   LOVE.  157 

or  tiling  for  tlie  good  qualities  and  gifts  which  it  saw  or 
accustomed  itself  to  see  in  them ;  at  first  it  believes  them  to 
be  so  inherent  in  the  person  or  thing  that  they  cannot  exist 
elsewhere,  and  are  found  there  alone ;  next,  the  good  quali- 
ties are  loved  rather  because  they  are  found  in  the  loved 
person  or  thing  than  for  their  own  sake  ;  and  at  last,  the 
individuals  are  loved  for  themselves  alone,  even  when  they 
have  lost  the  qualities  for  which  they  were  first  beloved, 
and  which  now,  when  found  in  others,  cease  to  excite  love. 
Love,  in  fact,  has  here  become  profoundly  immoral. 

240.  Let  it  be  noted,  however,  that  in  speaking  of  the 
love  which  has  the  ideal  for  its  object,  I  did  not  mean  that 
it  excluded  the  real.  A  love  that  should  exclude  reality 
would  be  rather  an  incipient  than  actual  love  ;  it  is  that 
which  has  been  termed  platonic,  and  which  is  felt  neither  by 
children  nor  the  mass  of  mankind,  but  solely  by  the  philoso- 
pher by  nature,  who  arrives  at  ideas,  but  can  neither  go 
beyond  nor  realize  them.  That  kind  of  philosophical  love  to 
which  may  be  ascribed  the  best  part  of  natural  virtue  does 
not  enter  into  our  present  subject.  The  love  which  we  have 
described  has  for  its  object  the  entity  in  and  for  its  ideal 
form.  The  idea,  then,  i,  e.  the  good  seen  in  the  idea,  is  the 
standard  by  which  actual  entities  are  loved ;  the  latter  are 
truly  loved ;  yet  not  only  because  they  exist,  but  because 
they  exist  with  the  gifts  and  qualities  which  make  them  lov- 
able. The  other  kind  of  love  we  have  spoken  of  loves  the 
actual  entities  without  going  beyond,  and  forgetting  or  even 
excluding  their  good  qualities. 

I  am  well  aware  that  this  simple  preamble  to  what  I  have 
further  to  say  on  this  subject  will  send  a  chill  to  the  hearts 
of  all  mothers,  wives,  fathers,  and  husbands  ;  but  I  am  bound 
to  speak  the  truth,  and  to  put  before  everything  else  the  dig- 
nity of  human  nature,  which  amply  repays  the  value  of  every 
affection  sacrificed  to  it.  I  shall,  however,  appear  less  cruel 
if  followed  to  the  end. 


158  ON   THE   RULING   PEINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

In  examining,  then,  into  the  moral  value  of  the  two  forms 
of  love  which  we  have  distinguished  above,  we  shall  be  led 
to  the  following  reflections. 

241.  It  is  feeling  which  constitutes  reality.  A  real  being 
as  such,  i.  e.,  in  so  far  as  it  is  feeling,  seeks  only  the  real, 
is  attracted  by  it  alone,  and  cares  to  unite  itself  only  with 
its  like,  ^.  e.,  with  another  real  being.  All  these  tendencies, 
or,  as  they  may  be  called,  affections,  although  blind,  are  not 
WTong  so  long  as  they  keep  within  the  sphere  of  feeling  ; 
they  are  rather  to  be  considered  as  having  no  moral  charac- 
ter, and  being  neither  virtuous  nor  vicious,  neither  merito- 
rious nor  the  reverse,  though  they  have  an  eudemonological 
value. 

But  when  the  intelligent  human  being,  the  moral  person, 
assigns  to  them  a  value,  they  enter  the  sphere  of  morality. 
If  the  value  assigned  to  them  by  the  understanding  be  just, 
the  person  so  judging  them  has  performed  a  virtuous  act ;  if 
it  be  unjust,  the  act  is  blamable.  What,  tlien,  is  the  just 
value  which  should  be  assigned  to  such  affections? 

In  themselves  they  have  none  at  all,  but,  considered  as 
elements  of  happiness,  they  have  a  value  when  they  become 
the  rewards  of  virtue.  In  this  relation  tliey  become  right 
and  desirable  even  to  the  moral  being.  But  how  great  is 
the  danger  lest  they  should  be  valued  for  themselves,  inde- 
pendently of  their  relations  to  virtue !  This  is  one  of  the 
primary  sources  of  human  depravation. 

242.  Leaving  aside,  then,  the  affections  that  spring  solely 
from  the  senses  and  feelings,  let  us  consider  the  morality 
of  the  rational  love  having  for  its  object  real  being. 

In  the  first  place,  a  finite  reality,  considered  in  itself, 
apart  from  any  attributes,  is  impossible  to  conceive  ;  it  is 
nothing,  it  presents  no  basis  for  our  love.  The  infinite 
reality  alone  can  be  loved  as  such :  that  alone  is. 

In  the  second  place,  the  love  of  finite  realities,  on  account 


MORALITY  OF  RATIONAL  LOVE.  159 

of  their  good  attributes  and  qualities,  is  certainly  right ;  but 
it  is  love  of  the  second  kind,  illumined  by  the  ideal :  a  love 
which  is  not  exclusive,  but  which  expands  to  all  objects  in 
which  it  finds  similar  attributes  and  qualities  :  a  love  which 
is  not  tinchangeable,  for  it  grows  and  diminishes  with  them ; 
finally,  a  love  which  is  not  excessive,  since  it  is  measured  by 
their  value.  The  love  which  has  for  its  object  a  reality  like 
itself  expends  its  whole  force  upon  that. 

In  the  third  place,  between  the  love  of  the  real  in  itself 
and  the  love  of  the  ideal  in  the  real,  we  find  the  love  of 
beneficence  and  the  love  of  gratitude  which  are  also  gov- 
erned by  the  idea, 

.  243.  The  love  of  beneficence  is  that  which  loves  to  pro- 
duce in  its  objects  the  good  qualities  and  attributes  which  it 
aims  at.  Its  scope,  then,  is  moral,  for  it  does  not  love  the 
real  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  the  realization  of  those  qualities 
which  deserve  to  be  loved. ^ 

The  love  of  gratitude  is  bestowed  on  the  beneficence  of  the 
person  loved,  and  therefore  terminates  in  the  benefactor's 
good  qualities.  Moreover,  it  desires  to  return  the  benefits 
received,  and  this  feeling  is  also  moral ;  'for  either  it  desires 
to  produce  or  to  perfect  some  good  quality  in  the  benefac- 
tor, or  to  bestow  some  eudemonological  benefit  upon  him. 
The  latter  is  a  moral  act ;  for  such  a  benefit  bestowed  out  of 
gratitude  is  a  benefit  given  on  account  of,  and  as  a  reward 
for,  the  good  action  whence  came  the  benefit.^ 

In  each  of  these  cases  the  love  of  the  real  is  not  absent ; 
but,  governed  by  the  idea,  it  remains  still  the  love  of  the 
idea  realized,  and,  therefore,  it  is  free  and  not  confined 
or  blind  or  exclusive. 

1  If  beneficence  aimed  only  at  giving  to  the  real  being  eudemonological  bene- 
fits, without  any  reference  to  virtue,  it  would  belong  to  the  love  of  the  real. 

2  In  the  love  of  gratitude  there  is,  perhaps,  always  something  of  love  of 
self,  that  is,  of  the  real,  which  in  this  case  is  proud  of  becoming  the  minister 
of  justice. 


160  ON   THE   RULING  PKINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

244.  We  have  now  seen  what  are  the  causes  which  narrow 
a  child's  affections  and  limit  his  benevolence.  We  may  de- 
duce from  them  this  most  important  rule  of  education :  use 
every  means  to  keep  the  benevolent  affections  in  the  child 
open,  enlightened  ;  not  exclusive,  but  universal.  The  science 
of  education  in  relation  to  infancy  will  have  reached  its  cul- 
minating point,  when  it  has  determined  what  those  means 
are,  whether  negative,  avoiding  every  occasion  of  limiting 
the  child's  affections,  or  positive,  bringing  him  to  bestow 
them  universally  and  justly. 

We  will  say  this  only  to  mothers,  nurses,  and  parents,  that, 
if  they  fear  to  lose  by  this  method  something  of  the  love 
they  covet  from  their  nurslings,  they  could  not  make  a  greater 
mistake.  The  only  result  of  it  will  be  to  change  a  love  rest- 
ing on  false  grounds  into  a  love  resting  on  true  ones  ;  an 
impetuous  but  inconstant  love  into  a  calm  but  everlasting 
one ;  the  exchange  of  some  childish  caresses  for  heartfelt 
respect,  which,  while  it  gives  their  children  that  moral  dig- 
nity which  is  the  highest  attribute  of  man,  will  give  to 
themselves  the  fullest  assurance  that  they  will  receive  from 
them  in  return  zealous  aid  and  support  through  all  chances 
and  changes  while  life  lasts,  and  an  honored  memory  after 
death. 

ARTICLE   VIII. 

ACTS  OF  RELIGIOUS  WORSHIP  WHICH   THE  CHILD  SHOULD   BEGIN  TO  PERFORM 
AT  THIS  AGE. 

245.  The  first  and  best  of  all  positive  means  to  foster  and 
render  universal  and  wise  the  benevolence  of  man  from  his 
tenderest  years,  is  to  turn  his  heart  from  infancy  towards 
the  source  of  his  being,  the  Creator. 

God,  comprehending  in  himself  the  whole  of  being  whence 
everything  that  is  is  God  loving  all  things,  for  he  has  made 
and  is  making  them  all, — God  is  the  sum  of  all  good  to- 
wards which  the  heart  of  man  tends,  and  therefore  the  love 


RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION   IN   INFANCY.  161 

of  God  contains  implicitly  the  love  ordained  for  all  other 
things.  Hence  it  is  from  this  flame  that  benevolence  is 
kindled,  and  derives  at  the  same  time  its  immense  expan- 
sion and  its  governing  principle. 

Truly  it  is  in  vain  that  Rousseau  pretends  that  the  worship 
of  God  is  beyond  the  lisping  of  the  infant  tongue.  On  the 
contrary,  the  little  child,  as  if  nearer  to  its  origin,  seems  to 
turn  towards  it  with  delight,  to  seek  it  with  eagerness,  and 
to  find  it  more  easily  even  than  the  adult ;  and  it  belongs  to 
God  rather  than  to  man  to  impart  himself  to  the  simple  soul 
that  knows  nothing,  yet  understands  its  Maker.  As  was  to 
be  expected,  the  sophistical  Gene vese  of  the  last  century  has 
been  amply  confuted  in  this  and  in  his  own  country.^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  child  at  its  third  period  already 
begins  to  conceive  the  idea  of  God ;  it  can,  therefore,  feel 
love  fori*  Him,  or  rather  it  cannot  help  loving  Him. 

If,  then,  we  consider  that,  for  all  who  admit  the  existence 
of  God,  He  is  the  bond  which  keeps  the  universe  together, 
the  reason,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  things,  the  good 
of  every  good,  the  essential  good,  who  does  not  see  that  this 
idea  of  God  for  all  who  are  neither  atheists  nor  utterly  in- 
consistent, must  govern,  subordinate,  and  direct  all  others? 
Who  does  not  see  that  from  it  alone  human  education  can 
derive  its  unity,  its  principle,  its  guiding  light,  and  not  less 
that  of  children .  than  of  adults ;  of  individuals  than  of 
society ;  of  nations  than  of  the  whole  human  race.^ 

Let  us,  then,  when  we  have  taught  the  child  the  meaning 
of  that  word  God,  teach  him  at  once  to  turn  with  all  his 
infant  affections  towards  Him.     I  have  already  shown  that 

1  The  reflections  of  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure  on  this  subject  are  so  full  of 
beauty  and  sense,  that  I  cannot  leave  it  without  pointing  them  out  to  the  reader 
and  urging  him  to  read  them  in  the  original.  See  B.  III.  c.  vii.  of  the  work  quoted 
above. 

2  See  Saggio  sulV  unitd,  dell'  echicazione,  "Essay  on  the  Unity  of  Education," 
in  Vol.  II.  of  this  collection  of  Pedagogical  works. 


162  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

man,  in  giving  his  heart  to  God,  does  not  withdraw  it  from 
other  things,  since  God  is  to  be  found  in  these  also.  He 
only  sanctifies  his  affections,  prevents  any  change  in  their 
nature,  and  makes  them  at  once  nobler  and  more  enduring. 

246.  Here  I  must  say  a  word  to  Christian  fathers  and 
mothers  :  to  any  others  my  words  would  be  unintelligible,  and 
for  that  reason  intolerable  :  let  those,  then,  close  their  ears 
whose  feelings  have  not  reached  the  height  which  truly. 
Christian  parents  derive,  not  from  nature,  but  from  the 
word  of  the  Highest. 

The  law  of  God  is  a  light  unto  the  feet  of  the  latter,  and 
therefore  they  fear  not  to  consult  it.  Let  them  see,  then, 
how  that  law  determines  the  affections  of  their  children 
towards  themselves  and  towards  the  Supreme  Being. 

What  does  the  law  of  God  ordain  towards  the  Supreme 
Being?  Love:  here  are  its  words :  "Thou  shalt  loVe  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and 
with  all  thy  mind."^ 

What  does  it  ordain  for  children  towards  their  parents  ? 
Honor:  here  again  are  its  words:  "Honor  thy  father  and 
thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land  which  the 
Lord  thy  God  hath  given  thee."^ 

Why  is  love  thus  reserved  for  God,  and  Jionor  commanded 
towards  parents  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  distribution 
of  the  affections? 

The  distribution  made  by  this  law  is  directly  opposed  to 
that  made  by  nature  ;  for  grace  is  in  continual  opposition 
to  nature,  being  larger  in  its  views  and  affections  than 
nature,  which  surrounds  itself  with  limitations  that  grace 
breaks  through  and  removes.  Nature  thus  inclines  man  to 
love  his  parents,  and  rather  to  honor  his  invisible  Creator 
than  to  love  him. 

247.  But  was  it  intended  by  the  Divine  law  to  condemn 

1  Matt.  xxii.  37.  2  Exodus  xx.  12. 


DIVINE    LAW   OF   LOVE.  163 

either  the  natural  love  of  children  towards  their  parents,  or 
the  honoring  of  God  ?  Assuredly  not :  it  aims  only  at  pre- 
serving natura.1  inclinations  from  being  transformed  and  cor- 
rupted. To  this  end,  it  adds  to  the  honor  which  natural 
reason  suggests  towards  God,  the  counterbalancing  precept 
to  love  Him;  and  to  the  love  felt  for  parents  it  adds  and 
gives  as  a  counterpoise  the  precept  to  honor  them.  More- 
over, to  the  honoring  of  God  it  adds  and  counterpoises  the 
honoring  of  parents  ;  and  to  the  love  of  parents  it  adds  and 
counterpoises  the  love  of  God.  Thus  the  natural  affections, 
counterbalanced  by  the  divine  precepts,  can  be  maintained 
free  from  excess  or  perversion. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  what  is  natural  does  not  re- 
quire to  be  commanded^  but  only  regulated.  Parents  need 
have  no  fear  as  regards  the  love  of  their  children :  nature 
guarantees  that,  and  it  is  only  necessary  to  take  care  that 
they  do  not  themselves  check  it  by  their  own  bad  conduct. 
But  let  them  (I  am  still  addressing  Christian  parents)  re- 
member also  that  what  they  have  to  fear  is,  not  that  the 
love  of  their  children  should  be  wanting,  but  that  it  should 
be  excessive  in  one  direction,  and  in  another  degenerate 
into  sterile  sentiment,  which,  springing  from  mere  instinct, 
will  yield  later  to  a  stronger  instinct,  —  that  of  selfishness. 
They  must  guard  against  the  first  of  these  perils,  which  ren- 
ders the  love  of  their  children  immoral,  by  striving  to  give 
to  God  the  larger  place  in  their  children's  hearts,  mindful  of 
the  Redeemer's  words:  "He  who  loves  father  or  mother 
more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me  ; "  ^  and  of  those  others 
which  show  that,  where  they  come  into  collision,  God  must  be 
preferred  to  parents:  "If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate 
not  his  father  and  mother,  ...  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."^ 
They  will  guard  themselves  against  the  second  peril,  if  they 
require  from  the  child   the   honor  due  to  their   authority, 

1  Matt.  X.  37.  »  Luke  xiv.  26,  27. 


164  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

which  is  the  source  of  reverential  love,  of  obedience,  and 
active  service.  All  these  are  included  in  the  law  of  God, 
and  are  a  good  exchange  for  mere  sensual  caresses.^ 

Love,  then,  towards  parents  is  the  better  for  bringing  into 
it  the  honor  commanded  by  the  law  of  God  :  the  latter  deter- 
mines the  quality  and  manner  of  it,  —  its  seriousness  and  its 
activity. 

In  the  same  way  the  honor  paid  to  God  is  enhanced  and 
determined  by  the  command  to  love  him  also  ;  so  that  neither 
the  love  shall  be  purely  external  and  material,  nor  the  honor 
proceed  merely  from  servile  fear  of  overwhelming  power,  but 
shall  be  honor  informed  with  love  and  full  of  a  confident 
hope,  —  the  worship,  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  of  the  true  wor- 
shippers, who,  seeking  to  do  the  will  of  God,  find  it  in  doing 
whatsoever  they  can  to  benefit  their  parents  and  all  other 
human  beings. 

Let  me,  then,  be  permitted  to  aflfirm  that  every  usurpation 
turns  against  those  who  commit  it,  and,  hence,  that  the  most 
affectionate  Christian  parents  should  watch  over  themselves, 
—  a  counsel  perhaps  never  given  to  them  before, — lest,  in 
usurping  that  final  love  of  their  children  which  is  due  to  God 
only,  they  should  lose  that  which  is  legitimately  due  to  them- 
selves, and  which  the  law  of  God  assigns  to  them. 

248.  To  return  to  the  infant :  It  is  evident  that  its  faculty 
of  worship  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  development  of  its 
knowledge  of  the  vSupreme  Being.  The  extent  of  the  latter 
at  that  age  has  already  been  pointed  out  (181-182).  The 
worship  corresponding  to  it  should  be  of  the  simplest  kind  ; 
nothing  more  than  a  feeling  of  love  expressed  in  words. 
Adoration  which,  as  well  as  homage  and  thanksgiving,  in- 

1  St.  Paul,  commenting  on  the  fourth  commandment,  places  obedience  as  the 
first  element  of  the  honor  to  be  given  to  parents  (children,  obey  your  parents  in. 
the  Lord;"  for  this  is  right.  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  etc.  Eplies.  vi.  1,  2), 
and  Christ,  explaining  that  commandment,  declares  that  the  honor  commanded 
towards  them  includes  supporting  them  in  their  need.    (Matt.  xv.  5.) 


CULTIVATION    OF   RELIGIOUS   FAMILY.  165 

volves  more  complex  feelings  and  conceptions,  belongs  with 
them  to  a  later  period. 

I  think  it  important  also  to  give  time  for  the  sufficient 
development  of  the  grand  idea  of  God  in  the  infant  mind, 
before  surrounding  it  with  accessory  ideas  and  other  religious 
doctrines.  The  child's  thought  should  be  concentrated  on 
the  majesty  of  the  Supreme  Being ;  when  he  has  arrived  at 
a  deep  feeling  of  that,  when  the  thought  of  God  and  his 
attributes  has  attained  dominion  over  him,  then  it  will  prove 
a  thoroughly  solid  foundation  on  which  all  other  religious 
ideas  can  be  built  up,  —  a  centre  round  which  they  will  gather  : 
religion  will  then  rise  up,  as  a  majestic  temple,  in  the  soul 
of  man. 


SECTION    IV. 

ON    THE    COGNITIONS    OP    THE  THIRD    ORDER    AND    THE 
CORRESPONDING    EDUCATION. 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE   FOURTH   PERIOD   OP    CHILDHOOD,   AND   THE   DIFFERENCE   BE- 
TWEEN   THE   PERIOD    AND    THE    ORDER    OF    COGNITIONS. 

249.  The  order  of  cognitions  marks  a  fixed  epoch  in  the 
mind ;  with  his  first  cognition  of  a  given  order  the  child 
enters  into  a  new  intellectual  condition ;  an  immense  field  is 
opened  before  him,  in  which  he  might  roam  without  find- 
ing a  limit,  even  were  he  unable  to  rise  beyond  that  order  to 
a  higher  one. 

But  when  we  try  to  determine  the  precise  period  at  which 
the  mind  passes  from  one  order  to  another,  we  are  met  by 
extreme  difficulties.  In  the  first  place,  all  children  do  not 
reach  these  intellectual  stages  at  the  same  age,  and  even  to 
determine  the  moment  of  their  attainment  in  any  individual 
child  would  be  excessively  difficult,  both  because  we  cannot 
be  sure  that  the  passage  from  the  one  to  the  other  will  take 
place  within  our  observation,  and  because,  even  if  it  did,  it 
might  easily  escape  us.  The  first  step  taken  by  the  child  in 
a  new  order  of  cognitions  may  be  so  slight  as  not  to  be  de- 
tected, and,  again,  the  analysis  of  these  mental  processes 
demands  from  the  educator  vastly  more  time  and  sagacity 
than  are  needed  by  the  child  in  his  rapid  passage  from  the  one 
to  the  other.  It  would,  therefore,  be  impossible  in  a  treatise 
on  method  to  determine  precisely  the  time  at  which  each 
successive  period  begins  and  ends,  and  yet  we  believe  that 
an  endeavor  to  fix  them  approximately  may  not  be  without 
its  use. 

106 


DIVISION   OF    PEKIODS.  167 

250.  Even  this  is  a  matter  of  difficulty  which  we  could 
venture  upon  only  on  the  strength  of  such  experience  of 
children  as  we  have  gained,  and  in  the  hope  that  the  experi- 
ence of  others  will  come  to  correct  and  complete  the  task 
which  we  are,  perhaps,  the  first  to  undertake. 

We  shall  begin  by  indicating  the  principle  we  have  fol- 
lowed, and  which  we  shall  adhere  to  in  dividing  the  periods. 
The  passage  from  the  one  to  the  other  not  occurring  at  the 
same  age  in  all  children,  we  shall  try  to  ascertain  the  time 
when  it  generally  takes  place,  taking  as  its  sign  some  act  of 
intelligence  common  in  childhood,  but  indubitably  belonging 
to  a  certain  order  of  cognitions.  Thus  we  have  assigned  the 
end  of  the  sixth  week  as  the  beginning  of  the  second  period  of 
infancy,  that  being  the  time  when  the  infant  generally  begins 
to  smile  back  at  its  mother,  thereby  giving  the  first  certain 
sign  of  intelligence.  We  have  assigned  the  beginning  of  the 
third  period  to  the  close  of  the  first  year,  because  children 
generally  begin  to  speak  at  that  time,  and  speech  is  an  act 
which  belongs  undoubtedly  to  the  second  order  of  cognitions. 
By  the  same  rule  we  shall  assign  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
period  of  which  we  are  now  about  to  treat  to  the  end  of  the 
second  year,  for  in  their  third  year  children  can  generally 
learn  to  read,  as  reading  is  an  act  which  belongs  to  the  third 
order  of  cognitions. 

251.  In  this  method  of  division  it  will  be  seen :  (1)  that 
we  take  as  our  rule  the  order  of  cognition  as  marking  the 
limits  of  each  period ;  (2)  that  this  rule  cannot  be  applied 
in  fixing  the  time  except  approximately. 

Hence,  when  we  say  that  the  third  period  of  childhood 
begins  with  the  second  year  of  age,  and  the  fourth  with 
the  third  year,  we  do  not  for  a  moment  mean  to  assert 
that  a  child  has  formed  no  cognitions  of  the  second  order 
before  reaching  his  second  year,  but  only  that  we  take  no 
notice  of  them  because  they  are  not  generally  observable 


168  ON    THE    KULING    PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

at  that  age.  In  the  same  manner,  when  we  fix  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  period  at  the  third  year,  we  by 
no  means  assert  that  a  child  cannot  earlier  than  that  attain 
some  cognitions  of  the  third  order ;  but  we  first  make  men- 
tion of  them  at  that  time  because  then  cognitions  of  the 
third  order  commonly  appear  in  children  so  unequivocally 
as  not  easily  to  escape  observation. 

We  beg  the  reader  to  note  this  explanation  once  for  all, 
and  to  apply  it  as  we  go  on  through  each  successive  period 
of  life  remaining  to  be  considered. 

CHAPTER    IL 

ON  THE  MENTAL  PROGRESS  MADE  AT  THAT  AGE  WITH  RE- 
GARD TO  THE  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  PRECEDING  ORDERS 
AND  THE  CONCOMITANT  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  OTHER  FAC-. 
ULTIES. 

252.  Even  should  the  child  pass  through  his  third  year 
without  rising  to  a  new  order  of  cognitions,  the  development 
of  his  faculties  would  still  go  on,  although  they  must  remain 
within  the  limits  assigned  by  the  previous  order.  There 
would  be  :  (1)  an  increase  in  the  number  of  cognitions  be- 
longing to  the  previous  orders ;  (2)  the  cognitions  them- 
selves would  become  more  accurate,  by  being  repeated  and 
impressed  upon  the  mind;  they  would  draw  out  greater 
power  of  attention,  and  become  merged  in  that  universal  feel- 
ing which  they  always  occasion,  and  which  is  the  source  of 
fresh  activity. 

Progress  along  these  two  lines  of  number  and  accuracy 
takes  place  in  each  order  of  cognitions,  and  this  fact  must 
never  be  lost  sight  of  in  following  out  the  course  of  human 
development.  We  point  it  out  here,  once  for  all,  leaving  it 
to  the  reader  to  apply  it  at  each  period  to  all  the  cognitions 
of  the  preceding  orders. 


CLASSIFICATION    OF   COGNITIONS.  169 

The  active  faculties  of  the  will  are  developed  pari  j)((^ssu 
with  the  passive  faculties  of  the  understanding,  and,  simul- 
taneously with  both,  all  the  animal  faculties,  which  all  tend 
to  form  habits  of  various  strength  and  quality. 

CHAPTER    III. 

ON    THE    COGNITIONS    OF    THE    THIRD    ORDER. 

ARTICLE    I. 
WHAT    ARE    THE    COGNITIONS    OF   THE   THIRD    ORDER    IN   GENERAL? 

253.  As  the  cognitions  of  the  second  order  are  those 
that  have  for  their  object  the  relations  between  cognitions  of 
the  first  order,  and  between  these  and  the  fe^ings  which  pre- 
cede cognitions  of  the  second  order, ^  so,  likewise,  the  cog- 
nitions of  the  third  order  have  for  their  object  the  relations 
between  those  of  the  second,  or  whatever  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings the  human  being  has  experienced  prior  to  the  second. 

The  cognitions  of  the  second  order,  then,  may  be  classed 
under  two  heads : 

Class  I.  Cognitions  of  the  second  order  which  have  for 
their  objects  the  relations  between  the  cognitions  of  the  first 
order. 

Class  II.  Cognitions  of  the  second  order  which  have  for 
their  object  the  relations  of  the  cognitions  of  the  first  order 
with  the  feelings  existing  in  man. 

254.  The  cognitions  of  the  third  order  being  reached  by 
the  mind  through  reflection  on  those  of  the  second  order, 
become  somewhat  more  complex,  and  may  be  divided  into 
the  following  classes : 

1  Under  the  terra  feelings  I  include  the  action  of  all  the  faculties  of  the  human 
mind,  so  far  as  that  action  is,  as  T  have  shown,  always  joined  to  a  feeling.  There 
is  is  a  difficulty  in  understanding  this  conjunction  of  feeling  and  cognition,  be- 
cause it  is  difficult  to  form  a  clear  conception  of  the  unity  of  the  human  subject, 
on  which  conception,  however,  depends  the  explanation  of  all  those  facts  in  which 
the  sensitive  and  intellectual  elemeiits  are  combined. 


170  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

I.  Those  which  have  for  their  object  the  relations^  be- 
tween cognitions  of  the  second  order. ^ 

(A.)  Relations  between  the  first  class  of  cognitions  of 
the  second  order. 

(B.)  Relations  between  the  second  class  of  cognitions 
of  the  second  order. 

((7.)  Relations  between  the  cognitions  of  the  first  class 
and  those  of  the  second  class,  always  of  the  second  order. 

II.  Class  of  cognitions  of  the  third  order:  those  which 
have  for  their  object  the  relations  of  the  cognitions  of  the 
second  order  with  those  of  the  first. 

(^1.)  Relations  of  the  first  class  of  cognitions  of  the 
second  with  those  of  the  first  order. 

(jB.)  Relations  of  the  second  class  of  cognitions  of  the 
second  with  cognitions  of  the  first  order. 

III.  Class  of  cognitions  of  the  third  order :  those  which 
have  for  their  object  the  relations  of  the  cognitions  of  the 
second  order  with  the  feelings  preceding  them. 

(A.)  Relations  of  the  first  class  of  cognitions  of  the 
second  order  with  antecedent  feelings. 

(B.)  Relations  of  the  second  class  of  cognitions  of  the 
second  order  with  antecedent  feelings. 

This  table  shows  that  the  number  of  classes  of  the  cogni- 
tions of  the  third  order  has  already  reached  to  seven ;  no 
slight  proof  of  the  immensity  of  human  thought,  and  of  the 
lal)yrinth  which  has  to  be  threaded  by  those  who  would  in- 
vestigate it  and  trace  its  limits. 

1  It  must  be  always  understood  that  these  are  the  immediate  relations,  per- 
ceived by  a  single  additional  act  of  reflection. 

2  The  expression  relafio7is  between  the  corpiitions  is  used  for  brevity;  but  it 
must  be  understood  to  mean  the  relations  between  the  objects  of  the  cognitions. 
It  is  true  that  the  mind  can  reflect  on  all  the  objects  of  its  cognitions  as  well  as  on 
the  cognitions  themselves  ;  but  the  latter,  considered  as  acts  of  the  subject,  come 
under  the  head  of  feelings  ;  when  they  are  afterwards  perceived  intellectually 
they  become  the  objects  of  the  cognitions:  hence  the  cognitions  reflected  upon  are 
classed  either  under /eelin(/s  or  under  objects  ^f  other  cognitions, 


EXAMPLE    OF   CLASSIFICATION.  171 

255.  As  it  would  take  too  long  to  give  an  example  of  each 
of  the  seven  classes,  I  will  restrict  myself  to  giving  one  only 
of  the  last,  —  that  in  which  the  acts  of  the  human  mind  are 
most  complicated. 

When  the  various  sensations  I  receive  from  a  rose  come 
to  me  through  my  several  organs  of  sense,  I  form  at  the 
same  time  an  intellectual  perception  of  the  rose  (first  order 
of  cognitions) .  Supposing  that  during  the  night  I  become 
conscious  of  the  scent  of  a  rose,  I  can  argue  from  the  scent 
to  the  existence  of  the  rose  close  by  :  a  process  of  reasoning 
which  I  accomplish  by  reflecting  on  the  relation  between  the 
odoriferous  sensation  and  my  past  perception  of  the  rose, 
and  this  belongs  to  cognitions  of  the  second  order  (second 
class).  If  I  go  on  reflecting  on  the  rose,  the  existence  of 
which  I  have  inferred,  and  argue  from  it  that,  if  a  rose  is 
there,  it  has  thorns  which  would  prick  me  should  I  attempt 
to  grasp  it,  I  shall  form  a  cognition  of  the  third  grade,  and 
of  the  last  class  in  that  order,  because  I  join  by  reflection 
the  invisible  rose  (cognition  of  the  second  order)  with  a 
feeling  in  me,  ^.  e,  that  of  pain. 

ARTICLE    II. 

METHOD    WE   SHALL   FOLLOW  HENCEFORTH    IN   THE    EXPOSITION  OF  HUMAN 
DEVELOPMENT. 

256.  It  would  be  an  endless  task  to  follow  out  all  the 
classes  into  which  the  third  grade  of  cognitions  can  be 
divided,  not  to  speak  of  the  succeeding  grades.  We  shall 
not  attempt  to  cover  so  vast  a  field,  useful  as  it  might  be, 
but,  leaving  it  to  those  who  come  after  us,  we  shall,  in  order 
to  keep  within  the  scope  of  this  work,  follow  henceforward, 
in  tracing  out  the  gradations  of  man's  intellectual  devel- 
opment, a  simpler  but  regular  plan,  leading  us  to  the  method 
best  suited  to  our  purpose. 

In  the  first  place,  we  shall  begin,  in  dealing  with  each  order 


172  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

of  cognitions,  by  carefully  marking  out  the  various  classes 
into  which  it  is  divided,  so  as  to  place  before  the  reader  a 
ground-plan,  giving  the  extent  of  the  order  and  the  limits 
and  varying  complexity  of  each  of  the  cognitions  belonging 
to  it.  Afterwards,  leaving  aside  this  sketch  of  the  larger 
field  of  research,  we  shall  consider  as  a  whole  the  cognitions 
of  that  order  according  to  the  following  plan : 

Firsts  we  shall  take  the  processes  of  the  mind  by  which  the 
cognitions  of  the  order  in  question  are  arrived  at :  then  we 
shall  take  the  objects  of  those  processes,  ^.  e.,  of  the  things 
we  have  succeeded  in  knowing  through  them. 

Second,  as  regards  the  objects  known,  these  must  be 
either  elementary  ideas'^  common  to  all  forms  of  knowledge, 
or  they  must  belong  to  one  or  other  of  our  three  supreme 
categories,  under  which  must  fall  all  the  things  that  are  or 
that  can  be  thought. 

To  sum  up :  the  following  scheme  will  lay  before  the 
reader  the  method  we  shall  pursue  in  treating  of  each  order 
of  cognitions,  and  he  will  find  it  no  small  advantage  to  keep 
it  before  him,  as  a  map  on  which  to  follow  the  road  we  go 
over. 

A,  Processes  by  which  the  mind  arrives  at  cognitions  of  a  given 
order. 

B.  Objects  of  these  intellectual  processes. 

I.  "Common  objects  or  elementary  ideas. 
11.  Categorical  objects,  that  is : 

1.  Real  and  ideal. 

2.  Moral. 

1  The  elementary  ideas  are  those  which  are  contained  in  the  idea  of  being,  the 
most  universal  of  all.    See  New  Essay,  No.  575  and  foil. 


SYNTHETIC   AND   ANALYTIC    JUDGMENTS.  173 

ARTICLE   III. 

PROCESSES   BY  WHICH    THE    MIND  ARRIVES  AT  COGNITIONS   OF  THE   THIRD 
ORDER. 

Section  1.  — Cognitions  of  the  third  order  are  always  reached  through  synthetic 
judgments :  law  by  which  synthetic  and  analytic  judgments  constantly  suc- 
ceed each  other  in  the  mind. 

257.  At  this  period  of  childhood  the  processes  for  which 
the  mind  is  fitted  are  syntJietic  judgments.^ 

And,  in  fact,  the  child  arrived  at  this  period,  having 
formed  in  his  mind  abstractions  from  sensible  things,  such 
as  color,  taste,  or,  at  any  rate,  sensible  pleasm-e  or  pain,  is 
capable  of  using  these  abstractions  as  so  many  predicates 
added  to  a  subject,  and  can  therefore  at  sight  of  a  certain 
kind  of  food,  say  "  this  is  good"  or  "  this  is  bad." 

Let  us  note  here  carefully  the  march  of  the  child's 
mind. 

I  have  elsewhere^  confuted  Kant's  a  priori  synthetic 
judgments.  At  the  same  time,  I  have  myself  admitted  an 
a  priori  synthetic  judgment,  but  only  one,  which  I  have 
termed  the  primitive  synthesis  or  perception.  I  have  de- 
clared to  be  a  priori  that  earliest  of  all  judgments  by  which 
man  affirms  to  himself  "something  exists,"  because  in  that 
the  predicate  is  existence,  which  is  not  derived  from  experi- 
ence, but  which  is  an  intuition  through  an  inward  act  of  the 
mind.  This  a  priori  synthetic  judgment  is  the  process  cor- 
responding to  the  first  order  of  cognitions. 

But  so  soon  as  the  mind  has  perceived  things,  it  forms 

1  Synthetic,  that  is,  combining  judgments,  are  those  in  which  the  mind  having 
the  conception  of  something  which  may  be  a  common  predicate,  applies  it,  in  fact, 
to  that  which  we  feel  or  perceive  ;  in  other  words,  we  predicate  it  of  some  object 
although  it  does  not  belong  to  our  conception  of  that  object.  For  example:  when 
we  say  "  this  food  is  good,"  we  form  a  synthetic  judgment,  because  the  predicate 
"good"  which  we  attach  to  our  conception  of  the  food  forms  no  part  of  it,  for 
the  food  might  be  bad. 

2  See  New  Essay,  Nos.  342-352. 


174  ON   THE   KULING   PEINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

analytical  judgments^  on  its  perceptions  and  on  the  memory 
of  these  perceptions  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  decomposes  both. 

258,  There  are  two  modes  in  which  the  decomposition  of 
perceptions  takes  place  ;  the  first  is  the  natural  mode  by 
which  the  mind  contemplates  the  simple  idea  of  the  thing, 
without  attending  to  the  judgment  regarding  its  subsistence. 
This  decomposition  of  the  idea  of  the  judgment  concerning 
subsistence,  which  takes  place  naturally,  is  not  an  analytical 
judgment,  for  it  is  not  a  judgment  at  all ;  the  subsistence 
and  the  idea  are  two  heterogenous  things  which  naturally 
come  apart :  the  mind  simply  directs  its  attention  rather  to 
one  than  the  other  of  two  things  which  are  naturally  sepa- 
rate. The  second  mode  of  decomposition  is  an  artificial 
process  applied  to  imaginal  ideas,  from  which  some  one  of 
their  elements  is  subtracted,  and  this  process  is  a  true  ana- 
lytical judgment,  because  it  is  an  actual  decomposition  of 
one  idea  into  several.  T^is  is  accomplished,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  the  aid  of  language  ;  and  under  this  aspect  lan- 
guages are  entitled  to  the  name  of  analytical  methods,  given 
them  by  Condillac.  Such  is  the  process  which  corresponds 
to  the  second  order  of  cognitions. 

It  is  evident  that  the  human  mind,  in  going  through 
this  process,  acquires  new  predicates.  Primarily  it  pos- 
sesses only  that  one,  innate  in  the  mind,  of  existence,  which 
enabled  it  to  form  its  primary  synthetic  judgments.  These 
supplied  the  material  for  the  analytical  judgments  which 
followed,  and  the  latter  again  furnished  the  mind  with  new 
predicates,  which  being  combined  with  more  and  more  sub- 
jects enabled  it  to  form  new  synthetical  judgments.  Thus, 
for  example,  if  I  already  know  what    is  sensibly  good  or 

1  Analytical  or  dividing  judgments  are  those  by  which  we  decompose  the 
object  perceived  into  its  several  parts.  For  example,  when  we  say  « food  is 
anything  that  is  eaten,"  we  express  an  analytical  judgment,  because  in  the 
conception  of  food  are  united  the  two  conceptions  of  "something"  and  "eat- 
able," which  in  the  above  proposition  are  divided. 


SYNTHETIC  JUDGMENT  CONTINUED.        175 

bad,  I  can,  on  seeing  a  kind  of  food  exactly  similar  in 
appearance  to  one  I  have  formerly  found  agreeable  to  my 
palate,  join  the  predicate  good  to  the  object  I  see,  and  pro- 
nounce the  following  synthetic  judgment:  "this  is  good," 
or  ''this  which  I  am  looking  at  is  good." 

259.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  confound  the  synthetic 
judgment  by  which  I  pronounce  "this  is  good,"  with  the 
purely  sensible  apprehension  which  is  manifested  alike  by 
the  lower  animals,  and  which  arises  from  the  association 
between  their  various  sensations.  If  the  dog  trembles  with 
eagerness  at  the  mere  sight  of  the  food  which  he  cannot  yet 
seize  upon,  he  does  not  pronounce  a  judgment ;  but  the  sight 
of  the  food  revives  the  phantasm  of  the  pleasant  taste  he 
has  before  experienced,  which  again  excites  his  desire  and 
corresponding  action.^  No  judgment  is  pronounced  except 
by  a  being  capable  of  haying  an  intuition  of  a  predicate 
by  itself  (abstract),  and  then  of  joining  it  to  a  subject,  i,  e, 
of  seeing  the  said  predicate  in  a  subject.  The  second  series 
of  synthetical  judgments  belongs,  therefore,  to  the  third 
order  of  cognitions.  Before  going  further,  it  may  be  useful 
to  point  out  here  the  universal  law  of  human  development, 
which  is  this  :  The  synthetic  and  the  analytic  judgments 
alternate  with  each  other  in  such  manner  that,  if  we  dispose 
in  a  series  the  various  orders  of  cognitions,  we  shall  find  the 
uneven  numbers  of  the  series  composed  of  so  many  files  of 
synthetic  judgments,  and  the  even  numbers  of  as  many  files 
of  analytical  judgments. 

That  this  must  be  the  course  of  things  is  manifest  from 
the  fact  that  we  can  decompose  only  what  we  have  previ- 
ously put  together.  Hence  composition  must  be  followed  by 
decomposition^  and  the  latter  by  recomposition,  and  so  on 

1  All  these  phenomena  in  animals  which  have  the  appearance  of  reasoning 
have  been  explained  by  me  in  Book  II.  of  the  Anthropology,  through  the  laws  of 
pure  animality,  which,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  not  \>eeii  done  before. 


176  ON   THE    KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

in  continual  alternation.  Those  orders  of  cognition,  then, 
which  are  formed  through  composition  or  synthesis,  give 
to  the  mind  new  subjects  to  analyze,  and  those  formed  by 
decomposition  or  analysis,  enrich  the  mind  with  ever  new 
predicates^  which  are  capable  of  being  synthesized,  ^.  e. 
joined  to  other  subjects. 

Section  2.  — What  is  contributed  by  analytical  judgments  to  the  third  order  of 

cognitions. 

260.  Together  with  the  synthetic  judgments  proper  to  the 
fourth  period,  the  child  continues  also  to  use  analysis. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  the  mental  processes 
which  begin  in  the  earlier  periods  continue  in  the  later  ones 
without  interruption,  only  increasing  in  number  and  com- 
pleteness (252),  and  thereby  complicating  more  and  more 
the  course  of  human  development.  To  this  must  be  added 
that  each  period  brings  fresh  material  for  analysis  and 
abstraction,  because  the  analysis  of  thought  is  ever  at  work 
decomposing  all  things,  and  thus  decomposes  again  the 
results  of  previous  decompositions.  There  is  assuredly  in 
thought  the  same  infinite  divisibility  as  in  the  decomposi- 
tion of  matter,  which  shows  how  vain  are  the  efforts  of 
those  logicians  who  would  try  to  reduce  the  knowable  to 
absolutely  elementary  ideas. 

Another  consequence  follows  from  this,  i.  e.,  that,  although 
analysis  belongs  to  the  second  order  of  cognitions,  yet  some 
of  its  products  are  proper  to  the  third,  and  could  not  appear 
earlier.  This  applies  equally  to  all  the  following  higher 
orders  of  cognition,  so  that,  at  each  intellectual  stage,  analy- 
sis contributes  something  proper  to  itself. 

261.  The  first  abstractions  made  by  the  child  are  those 
of  the  sensible  qualities  of  things, — their  felt  pleasantness 
or  unpleasantness.  These  qualities  are,  in  fact,  only  effects 
produced  by  things  on  our  faculty  of  feeling.  It  is  natural 
that  the  child  should,  at  first,  attend  only  to  what  it  feels, 


CONCEPTION   OF   ACTION.  177 

for  what  it  doe^  not  feel  has  as  yet  no  existence  for  it. 
But,  so  soon  as  it  is  able  to  bring  into  harmony  the 
sensations  derived  from  its  various  organs,  to  receive  the 
one  as  the  forerunner  of  another,  to  expect  the  latter  be- 
cause it  has  received  the  former,  etc.,  it  arrives  little  by 
little  at  directing  attention  to  the  actions  of  things,  at 
abstracting  their  action  from  the  things,  always  by  means 
of  language,  that  is,  by  means  of  the  verbs  which  exactly 
mark  the  action  of  things. 

Let  me  again  quote  here  a  mother's  observations  on  the 
mode  by  which  the  child,  through  the  use  of  language, 
arrives  at  forming  abstractions  of  actions :  — 

"  It  would  certainly  seem  easy  to  understand  how  the  child 
learns  to  name  material  objects.  When  they  have  been  shown  to 
him,  certain  sounds  being  uttered  at  the  same  time,  the  thing  re- 
calls the  idea  of  the  word,  and  the  word  that  of  the  thing.  But  it 
is  more  difficult  to  understand  how  he  comes  to  attach  a  sign  to 
that  which  has  no  corporeal  existence.  The  actions,  for  instance, 
which  are  always  expressed  or  supposed  by  verbs,  have  no  perma- 
nent type  in  nature.^  They  do  not  fall  under  the  senses  of  the 
child  as  he  names  them,  and  he  says  *  go, '  when  as  yet  there  is 
no  sign  of  going.  He  must  have  within  him  the  idea  expressed 
by  the  verb,  and  apply  this  idea,  which  is  at  once  clear  and  elastic, 
successively  to  all  that  belongs  to  action.  How,  then,  has  he  con- 
ceived a  notion  of  this  kind  which  seems  one  of  the  most  subtle  of 
abstractions  ?  It  would  seem  that  he  has  derived  it  from  gestures, 
actions  behig  the  natural  objects  of  pantomime,  which  may  be 
called  the  language  of  action.  We  use  much  unconscious  gesticu- 
lation with  children,  and  thus  they  learn  to  gesticulate  themselves 
a  great  deal.  Hence,  when  a  certain  word  always  accompanies 
certain  movements,^  the  two  ideas  become  connected  in  their  minds 

1  Hence,  when  they  are  named,  it  is  by  an  abstraction ;  to  walk,  for  example, 
is  not  a  special  act  of  walking  done  by  some  man  once,  but  to  tvalJc  in  general,  to 
walk  as  men  commonly  do,  though  each  time  they  walk  it  will  be  differently  from 
the  time  before. 

2  These  movements  being  always  different  and  varied,  we  require  an  abstrac- 
tion to  fix  them  in  our  minds  with  a  type  common  to  all. 


178  ON   THE   RULING   PKINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

"  It  is  true  that  words  which  are  verbs  to  us  are  not  always  so  to 
them.  Thus,  to  drink  means  to  them  water  or  milk ;  to  go  out  icalk- 
ing,  the  open  air  or  the  door.  But  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  require 
that  the  action  should  follow  the  word,  the  action  assumes  a  greater 
consistency  in  their  minds,  and  they  end  by  really  attaching  the 
sign  to  it.  Children,  like  negroes,  at  first  use  only  the  infinitive. 
Not  having  yet  formed  any  idea  of  time,  and  not  understanding 
pronouns  till  much  later,  they  are  reduced  to  the  infinitive  mood."  ^ 

These  observations  are  full  of  truth,  and  of  rare  saga- 
city. 

Section  3.  —  Catathetical  2  Ratiocination  at  this  period.  •• 

262.  The  synthetical  judgments  of  this  period  are  the 
result  of  a  catathetical  ratiocination,  performed  by  the  child's 
mind.  For  example,  when  the  child  judges  to  be  good  the 
food  he  sees  preparing  for  him,  he  conceives  in  his  little 
brain  a  discourse,  which,  if  it  were  put  into  propositions, 
would  assume  this  form :  ' '  What  I  now  see  is  like  what  I 
saw  before  ;  but  what  I  saw  before  was  pleasant  to  my  taste 
and  my  stomach  ;  therefore,  this  which  I  see  now  is  pleasant 
for  my  taste  and  my  stomach."  The  child  is  quite  unable  to 
express  such  propositions ;  but  their  substance  undoubtedly 
passes  through  his  mind. 

But,  although  the  child,  at  the  age  we  are  speaking  of,  is 
capable  of  catathetical  reasoning,  and  thus  of  rising  to  the 
third  order  of  cognitions,  he  is  as  yet  incapable  of  conceiv- 
ing hypothetical  or  disjunctive  reasoning,  because  both  these 
forms  require  that  the  major  premiss  shall  be  composed  of 
two  predicates  compared  with  each  other,  of  which  the  one 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  H.,  c.  vi. 

2  We  call  those  catathetical  judgments,  or  judgments  of  position,  those  in 
which  the  major  premiss  is  absolute,  without  any  conditional  expressed  or  implied. 
Others  have  called  such  reasonings  categorical ;  but  we  have  been  obliged  to  de- 
part from  this  nomenclature  for  the  sake  of  clearness  of  expression,  and  have 
reserved  the  word  category  to  signify  a  division  of  things  wide  enough  to  include 
genera,  as  will  be  seen  more  clearly  in  the  Ontology. 


REALITY   AND   IDEALITY.  179 

implies  or  excludes  the  other.  Now,  he  possesses  predi- 
cates indeed,  but  to  compare  them  and  discover  the  relation 
between  them  requires  a  higher  order  of  cognitions,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  following  sections. 

ARTICLE   rV. 

OBJECTS   OF   THE   COGNITIONS    OF   THE   THIRD    OBDEB. 

Section  1.— Reality  and  Ideality.^ 
{A.)  Collections,  numbers. 

263.  What,  then,  are  the  objects  which  man  comes  to  know 
through  the  processes  indicated  as  belonging  to  the  third 
order?  We  will  point  out  some  of  the  principal  classes  of 
such  objects:  —  first  the  real,  then  the  ideal,  and,  finally, 
the  moral.     Let  us  begin  with  the  first. 

Among  real  objects,  we  must  first  examine  the  progress 
made  by  the  mind  in  the  conception  of  collections. 

The  sensistic  and  the  Scotch  schools  confounded  together 
abstractions  and  collective  ideas ^  which  are  entirely  different.^ 
Abstractions  form  the  basis  of  collections,  but  are  not  collec- 
tions. I  could  not  have  the  idea  of  a  flock  of  sheep,  if  I  had 
not  first  the  abstract  idea  of  a  sheep,  to  which  each  sheep 
in  the  flock  conformed ;  for  a  collection  is  only  a  multiplicity 
of  things  like  each  other  in  certain  respects. 

264.  Let  us  see,  then,  by  what  steps  the  mind  arrives  at 
the  conception  of  collections. 

On  first  seeing  several  things  together,  or  feeling  them 
simultaneously,  the  child  forms  no  idea  of  collection  or  plu- 
rality or  difference.  Granting  that  his  understanding  arrives 
at  perception^  and,  consequently,  that  such  sensations  do  not 
remain  mere  sensible  phenomena,  it  does  not  follow  that  he 
derives  from  them  at  first  the  above-mentioned  conceptions 

1  It  seems  to  me  well  to  speak  of  these  two  categories  of  objects  together 
rather  than  separately,  on  account  of  their  close  relation  to  each  other, 
*  See  New  Essay  ^  nos.  142  and  foil. 


180  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

of  multiplicity,  etc.  All  that  can  be  said  is,  that,  when  the 
child  sees  two  things  before  him,  he  has  a  different  percep- 
tion from  that  which  he  has  when  he  sees  only  one.  It 
does  not  follow  that  the  child  distinguishes,  in  the  first  case, 
two  objects ;  in  the  second,  only  one ;  he  distinguishes  only 
two  different  perceptions,  which  he  is  as  yet  unable  to  ana- 
lyze. Multiplicity  is  conceived  only  when  we  can  distinguish 
and  separate  the  units  which  compose  it ;  but  when  these 
units  are  perceived  at  once,  and,  according  to  the  expression 
of  the  Schools,  per  modum  unius^  the  mind  gains  no  con- 
ception of  collections.  The  difference  between  the  percep- 
tion of  an  object  and  the  perception  of  several  objects  was 
what  deceived  Bonnet  into  believing  he  had  grounds  for 
stating  that  ideas  of  collections  are  formed  by  the  action 
of  sensible  objects  on  our  organs,  as,  according  to  his 
belief,  our  simple  ideas  are  also  formed.^  We,  on  the 
contrary,  while  granting  that  the  impression  received  by  the 
child's  organs  at  the  sight  of  a  flock  of  sheep  is  widely 
different  from  that  which  he  receives  from  the  sight  of  a 
single  sheep,  entirely  deny  that  the  difference  consists  in 
the  former's  corresponding  to  a  collective  idea,  and  the 
latter's  to  the  idea  of  a  single  thing :  both  are  simple 
impressions,  the  one  more  varied  than  the  other,  but  not 
conve^dng  as  yet  to  the  mind  any  true  idea  of  collection. 

This  error  of  Bonnet's  proves  that  he  was  unacquainted 
with  the  true  nature  of  collective  ideas,  and  did  not  think  it 
necessary  to  investigate  it.  Having  observed  the  difference  of 
the  impression  made  by  collections  of  things,  from  that  made 
by  a  single  thing,  he  concluded  that  the  nature  of  the  collec- 
tive idea  consisted  simply  in  that  difference  ef  impression. 

The  system  of  sensistic  philosophy  could  not  preserve 
Bonnet  from  this  error  ;  for,  as  that  system  makes  no  essen- 
tial separation  between  sensation  and  cognition,  it  was  im- 

1  See  Essai  Analytique  sur  les  faculUs  de  I'dme,  §§  201,  205,  214. 


COLLECTIVE    AND    ABSTRACT   NOTIONS.  181 

possible  for  him  to  perceive  that  the  understanding  does  not 
take  in  at  once  all  that  the  sensation  contains,  but  arrives  at 
it  little  by  little.  We  have  seen^  that  the  understanding  at 
first  perceives  only  the  resistance  of  body,  whence  it  dis- 
covers entity  ;  and  only  afterwards  attends  to  the  sensible 
qualities  of  the  entity,  which  for  a  long  while  remain  in 
the  sense  only,  —  felt  indeed,  but  not  cognized  by  the  subject. 
Moreover,  we  have  seen  that  the  understanding,  in  each  of 
its  acts,  perceives  as  little  as  possible;  that  is,  it  perceives 
only  so  much,  and  no  more,  of  the  sensible  object,  as  it  is 
constrained  to  perceive  by  its  immediate  need,  —  which  is 
the  stimulus  that  awakens  and  spurs  it  on  to  action.  Even 
if  the  two  sensations  of  a  collection  of  things  and  a  simple 
thing  could  give  the  material  out  of  which  the  understand- 
ing might  form  the  idea  of  collection  and  the  idea  of  unity, 
it  would  by  no  means  follow  that  it  would  in  fact  soon  form 
such  ideas  ;  it  will  form  them  when  the  intelligent  subject 
feels  the  want  of  them,  and  not  a  moment  sooner.  It  is 
in  any  case  the  duty  of  the  philosopher  to  describe  all  the 
processes  of  the  understanding,  in  working  out  and  putting 
together  ideas  from  the  material  furnished  to  it  by  the  senses. 
This,  then,  is  what  we  have  to  investigate. 

265.  To  begin  with  :  the  analysis  of  the  idea  of  a  collec- 
tion gives  these  certain  results :  (1)  that  such  idea  presup- 
poses in  the  mind  of  the  child  that  possesses  it  the  knowl- 
edge of  what  a  unit  is  ;  (2)  that  the  child  also  knows  that 
several  units  are  gathered  together  in  the  same  place  (to 
take  only  collections  of  the  simplest  kind).  This  second 
contains  a  third,  i,  e.,  the  likeness  in  certain  respects  of  the 
units  forming  thd  collection  ;  for  no  collection  can  be  formed 
of  things  entirely  and  totally  different.^ 

1  See  above,  where  we  have  spoken  of  the  successive  improvement  which  takes 
place  in  the  intellectual  perceptions  (nos.  104  and  foil.) 

*  That  we  are  always  able  to  conceive  a  collection  of  several  things  arises  from 


182  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  the  conception  of  unity  in  its 
abstract  form,  as  expressed  by  the  word,  enters  early  into 
the  mind  of  the  child.  Ideal  unity  exists  implicitly  in 
entity^  which  is  given  in  the  natural  light  of  the  mind, 
and,  therefore,  the  child  supposes  and  adopts  it,  but  with- 
out giving  any  attention  to  it,  simply  because  he  does  not 
want  such  a  lofty  abstraction.  Nevertheless,  when  he  hears 
the  words,  one  thing,  two  things,  —  and  here  language  again 
comes  to  his  aid,  —  he  learns  after  a  while  that  the  two 
things  are  the  same  thing  repeated.  To  pronounce  mentally 
the  following  judgment :  These  things  which  I  see  are  two, 
is  a  complicated  operation.  We  may  consider  it  first  as  an 
analysis  of  the  single  sensible  impression  which  represents 
the  two  objects.  The  mind  goes  back  to  that  impression, 
perceives  it,  and  distinguishes  in  it  one  object  from  the  other. 
But,  in  order  to  do  this,  the  mind  must  have  heard  the  com- 
mon name  of  the  two  objects,  let  us  say  pear^  must  have 
heard  it  applied  to  both  the  one  and  the  other,  and  must 
have  understood  that  this  name  expresses  what  is  common 
to  both.  The  common  quality  of  the  two  objects  must  be 
associated  with  that  name,  and,  therefore,  must  have  been 
abstracted  from  the  individuals.  Even  then  it  cannot  be 
said  that  the  mind  has  succeeded  in  forming  the  judgment : 
These  are  two  objects, — because  the  common  quality,  asso- 
ciated with  the  name,  is  one  and  does  not  suppose  a  duality ; 
and  the  circumstance  that  it  has  been  deduced  from  several 
objects  does  not  necessitate  retaining  in  the  mind  the  plural- 
ity of  the  objects,  each  one  of  which  may  have  left  the  im- 
pression of  its  common  element,  without  the  mind's  having 
considered  them  together  and  noted  their  numerical  relation. 
But  when  the  child,  having  already  in  his  mind,  on  the  one 

their  being  always  alike,  at  least,  in  their  universal  aspect,  as  things,  entities. 
Nevertheless,  I  think  an  idea  and  a  thing  could  not  together  form  any  plurality 
or  any  collection,  because  they  differ  from  each  other  categorically. 


COGNITION    OF   NUMBERS.  183 

hand,  the  common  quality  associated  with  the  name,  say  of 
pear^  and,  on  the  other,  hears  repeatedly  the  words,  one 
pear,  two  pears,  and  sees  these  objects  before  him,  he  ends 
by  attaching  a  meaning  to  the  words  one  and  two^  and  by 
fixing  his  attention  on  the  unity  and  on  the  quality  of  the 
pears. 

If  we  consider  this  succession  of  processes  by  which  the 
mind  arrives  at  conceiving  the  duality  of  objects,  we  shall 
easily  perceive  that  such  a  conception  is  not  possible  for  it 
until  it  has  reached  the  third  grade  of  cognitions.  And,  in 
fact,  the  perception  of  abstract  quality  belongs,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  the  second  grade.  To  reflect  on  the  numerical  rela- 
tion between  the  objects  having  the  same  abstract  quality  is 
manifestly  a  further  step  in  reflection,  ^.  e.,  a  cognition  of 
the  third  grade. 

266.  Here  it  will  be  best  that  we  should  point  out  how 
the  mind  passes  to  the  conception  of  the  numbers  beyond 
two.  For  although,  as  requiring  the  passage  to  higher  and 
higher  orders  of  cognition,  it  would  seem  to  belong  rather  to 
the  following  sections,  yet  I  think  the  argument  will  be 
made  clearer  if  we  put  together  here  all  that  belongs  to  the 
cognition  of  numbers. 

It  is  evident  that,  for  the  numbers  three,  four,  five,  etc., 
the  same  process  has  in  part  to  be  gone  through  as  for  the 
conception  of  two.  We  always  require  the  words  which 
shall  fix  the  trinity  of  things,  the  quartern! ty,  etc.  More- 
over, we  cannot  go  on  to  number  three  objects,  till  we  have 
previously  numbered  two,  or  form  the  conception  of  four 
unless  we  have  first  conceived  three.  This  shows  that  each 
number  belongs  to  a  higher  order  of  cognition,^  so  that  the 
mind  is  forced  to  pass  through  as  many  grades  of  cognition 

1  Aristotle  says  that  one  number  differs  from  another  specifically.  I  think  that 
he  held  this  opinion,  which  was  also  adopted  by  the  Schoolmen,  on  this  ground, 
that  the  different  numbers  cannot  be  classed  as  belonging  to  the  same  grade  of 
cognition,  although  he  had  not  clearly  apprehended  this  truth. 


184  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

as  there  are  numbers  of  which  it  is  able  to  form  a  distinct 
idea.  I  say  '  a  distinct  idea/  for  it  is  by  no  means  to  be 
assumed  that  man  has  a  distinct  idea  of  every  number  the 
name  of  which  he  pronounces.  Who  has  any  distinct  idea 
of  a  million,  or  even  of  a  thousand?  I  believe,  on  the  con- 
trary,  that  we  must  descend  to  an  extremely  small  number, 
to  find  one  of  which  men,  even  educated  ones,  form  a  dis- 
tinct idea  of  their  own,  unassisted  by  some  general  formula. 
267.  And,  in  fact,  I  believe  it  would  be  impossible  for 
men  even  to  name  the  very  high  numbers,  if  there  were  no 
other  way  of  arriving  at  the  conception  of  them  than  the 
one  we  have  pointed  out,  i.  e.,  by  analyzing  the  perception 
received  from  collections  of  objects,  enumerating  the  dis- 
tinct units  in  them,  and  then  noting  the  relation  of  the 
second  unit  to  the  first,  of  the  third  to  the  first  two,  of  the 
fourth  to  the  first  three,  and  so  on,  through  all  the  orders  of 
collection  to  which  the  numbers  belong.  The  mind,  instead, 
helps  itself  by  the  use  of  general  formulae,  which,  though 
they  cannot  give  the  distinct  idea  proper  to  a  given  number, 
give,  at  least,  the  idea  of  a  relation  between  an  unknown 
number  and  a  known  one,  and  the  knowledge  of  these  rela- 
tions is  sufficient  to  give  implicitly  the  idea  of  the  former, 
because  it  gives  the  elements  by  the  use  of  which  we  can 
find  it.  For  instance, — if  I  do  not  know  the  number  1000 
in  itself,  but  know  that  it  is  equal  to  10  times  100, 1  know  it 
implicitly  through  my  knowledge  of  10  and  100.  So,  again 
l"*  I  do  not  know  the  number  100,  but  know  that  it  is  10 
times  10,  I  have  implicitly  the  knowledge  of  100,  in  my 
knowledge  of  10  and  its  relation  to  100.  Or  if  I  do  not 
know  10  by  itself,  but  yet  know  that  it  is  twice  5,  I  know 
it  implicitly  through  my  knowledge  of  2  and  5  and  their 
relation  to  10.  If,  finally,  I  did  not  know  5,  but  yot  knew 
that  it  is  a  number  composed  of  twice  2  plus  1 , 1  should  have 
the  implicit  knowledge  of  it  in  my  knowledge  of  1  and  2  and 


COGNITION   OF   NUMBERS.  185 

the  relation  between  them.  Hence,  if  I  know  1  and  2  and 
the  relations  above  mentioned  between  the  other  numbers,  I 
should  say  that  my  knowledge  of  1  and  2  is  proper  and 
distinct ;  but  that  my  knowledge  of  the  other  numbers  is, 
on  the  contrary,  implicit  and  expressed  in  formulce. 

From  this  example  it  will  be  easily  seen  that  the  mind 
arrives  much  more  rapidly  at  the  knowledge  of  numbers 
through  formulae  than  at  the  proper  and  distinct  knowledge 
of  each  number  by  itself,  since,  by  the  method  described,  it 
arrives,  through  four  stages  of  reflection,  at  the  knowledge 
of  1000,  whereas  to  attain  to  a  distinct  and  proper  knowledge 
of  it  would  require  a  thousand  stages  of  reflection,  —  a  thing 
almost  impossible  to  man. 

Now  the  science  of  the  relations  of  numbers  is  arithmetic, 
and  hence  it  is  the  one  which  prepares  the  way  for  the  child's 
advance  in  the  knowledge  of  numbers. 

268.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  asked  :  What  is  the  first  formula 
found  by  the  child  for  its  advance  in  the  numerical  scale, 
and  to  what  order  does  it  belong?  The  following  is  my 
view  of  it. 

Let  us  go  back  to  our  collective  perception :  The  child 
having  already  mastered  the  knowledge  of  one  and  two,  sees, 
say,  a  detachment  of  thirty- two  soldiers  :  the  simplest  way  by 
which  he  can  manage,  if  not  to  count,  at  least  to  go  over 
their  number,  and  divide  them  one  from  the  other,  will  be 
as  follows  : 

His  perception  of  the  detachment  is,  in  the  first  place,  a 
single  one  ;  but  he  is  already  capable  of  fixing  his  attention 
on  one  of  the  soldiers.  He  becomes  aware  that  the  detach- 
ment is  not  a  single  soldier ;  for  he  sees,  besides  the  one 
soldier  he  has  distinctly  observed,  something  else  which  he 
calls  two.  But  this  two  resembles  rather  his  perception  of 
the  whole  detachment  than  the  one  soldier  he  has  considered 
apart.     He  can  thus   repeat   the  operation,  taking  another 


186  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

soldier  from  the  group  that  remains,  and  so  on,  taking  each 
time  one  soldier  from  the  remainder,  till  he  has  gone  through 
the  whole  number.  After  all,  he  does  not  yet  know  the  num- 
ber of  the  soldiers  ;  but  he  has  gone  over  them  one  by  one  ; 
he  has  always  had  two  objects  present  to  him  ;  he  has  learned 
that  one  and  two  can  be  repeated  as  often  as  he  chooses,  and 
this  is  a  new  and  important  piece  of  knowledge  to  him.  If 
he  likes  to  carry  on  his  reflections,  he  can  form  two  groups 
of  soldiers,  and  then  two  more  out  of  these,  and  so  on  till 
he  finds  the  relation  of  2  to  32,  or,  if  he  expressed  the  idea 
of  32  through  the  number  2  only,  his  formula  would  be 
2x2x2x2x2  equal  32. 

269.  It  is  easy  to  see,  from  this  example,  how  great  a  step 
is  the  number  2  for  the  infant  mind,  since  that  number  is 
the  basis  of  all  numeration  and  primitive  arithmetic,  —  every 
number  whatsoever  being  composed  of  1  and  2,  and  their 
combinations  once  or  twice  repeated. 

This  importance  of  the  number  2  in  human  knowledge 
explains,  if  I  mistake  not,  why,  in  the  oldest  languages,  there 
is  a  special  termination  for  the  diial^  which  is  not  confounded 
with  the  plural,  as  in  modern  languages.  It  is  true  that  the 
dual  in  those  ancient  languages  is  applied  mostly  to  those 
objects  which  are  naturally  pairs,  as  the  eyes,  the  lips,  the 
hands,  the  feet,  the  millstones,  etc.  ;  but  this  itself  shows 
the  special  attention  given  by  the  primitive  mind  to  double 
things,  and  how,  when  it  has  learned  from  them  the  number 
two,  the  door  is  open  for  all  other  numbers  which  it  com- 
prised indefinitely  under  a  common  plural  termination. 

(S.)    First  Definite  Principles  drawn  from  the  Ideas  of  Things. 

270.  Another  product  of  the  intellectual  processes  in  the 
child's  mind  at  this  age  is  that  of  the  primary  definite  princi- 
ples which  it  acquires,  and  of  which  it  makes  use  in  forming 
judgments. 


FIRST   PRINCIPLES.  187 

We  must  first  understand  clearly  what  is  a  principle  or 
rule  of  judgment :  it  is  no  other  than  an  idea  applied  by 
means  of  a  judgment.^  When,  on  seeing  an  object,  I  pro- 
nounce it  to  be  a  plant,  I  apply  the  idea  of  the  plant  to  the 
object  I  see,  and  my  judgment  is  simply  a  proposition  in 
which  I  affirm  that  I  have  found  in  the  object  seen  that  which 
I  contemplated  in  the  idea.  The  idea  of  the  plant  is  the 
standard  which  I  follow  in  forming  my  judgment. 

This  being  ascertained,  it  follows  that  there  are  as  many 
principles  as  ideas  ;  ^  and  the  principles  are  wide  or  narrow, 
exactly  as  the  ideas  of  which  they  are  the  application. 

271.  Man,  human  nature,  is  formed  by  one  idea  only 
(the  intuition  of  being).  If  he  had  none,  he  would  not  be 
an  intelligent  being  ;  for  the  act  characteristic  of  intelligence 
is  judgment,  and  judgment  is  only  the  application  of  an  idea. 
When,  therefore,  the  human  being  begins  to  use  his  intelli- 
gence in  forming  his  first  judgments,  he  can  form  them  only 
by  the  one  idea  he  possesses,  —  that  of  existence ;  hence, 
before  judging  anything  else,  he  judges  that  a  thing  exists, 
he  affirms  its  existence. 

When  he  pronounces  intellectually  the  existence  of  a  real 
thing,  applying  to  it  an  idea  (intellectual  perception) ,  that 
idea  serves  as  his  principle.  From  his  earliest  intellectual 
acts,  then,  man  has  in  his  mind  a  principle  by  which  he  can 
pronounce  a  judgment ;  for  every  judgment  presupposes  a 
standard  which  is  applied  in  judging. 

Nevertheless,  this  principle  by  which  man  judges  that  real 
things  exist  (perception)  is  an  indefinite  and  unlimited  prin- 
ciple, for  it  can  be  applied  equally  to  all  real,  sensible  things, 
and   it   is   this   indefiniteness  that  distinguishes  it  from  the 

*  This  definition  of  principles  is  of  the  utmost  importance.  We  have  already 
laid  it  down  in  the  New  Essay,  nos.  57G  and  foil. 

2  It  must  be  remembered,  as  I  have  so  often  said  and  proved,  that  all  ideas  are 
universal.  Ideas  must  never  be  confounded  with  feelings  or  perceptions,  which 
alone  are  particular. 


188  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

definite  principles  which,  in  my  belief,  do  not  make  their 
appearance  till  the  child  has  reached  the  third  order  of 
cognitions. 

In  the  first  order  we  find  only  perceptions  and  imaginal 
ideas.  Perceptions  cannot  be  used  as  principles,  on  account 
of  being  always  particular,  and  the  same  must  be  said  of  the 
remembrance  of  them.  Imaginal  ideas  might  be  so  used, 
since  they  are  universal ;  but  as  no  more  individuals  exactly 
alike  are  to  be  found,  they  have  no  possible  application. 
Moreover,  they  could  be  applied  only  on  the  repetition  of 
past  perceptions ;  but  the  latter  could  not  require  them  as 
their  standard,  the  ideas  being,  in  fact,  the  effect  of  the  per- 
ceptions themselves. 

272.  The  second  order  of  cognitions  supplies  abstract 
ideas,  but  goes  no  further  than  providing  the  mind  with  this 
supply  and  preparing  the  way  for  the  third  order  of  cogni- 
tions. And,  in  fact,  the  mind,  when  it  applies  to  the  judg- 
ment of  things  the  ideas  supplied  through  the  second  order 
of  cognitions,  performs  precisely  the  operation  by  which  it 
rises  to  the  third  order. 

Now,  these  principles  are  definite,  because  the  abstract 
and  semi-abstract  ideas  supplied  by  the  second  order  of  cog- 
nitions all  have  a  limitation ;  they  do  not  embrace  being  in 
general,  but  limited  being,  circumscribed  within  more  or  less 
extended  confines.  The  abstract  idea  of  food,  dog,  etc.,  are 
not  applied  to  all  beings  ;  but  serve  only  for  the  recognition 
of  all  such  entities  as  are  food,  all  such  as  are  dogs,  etc.^ 
These  ideas  become,  therefore,  in  their  application,  more 
restricted  than  the  idea  of  being  in  general. 

1  The  art  of  applying  an  idea  is  itself  learned  gradually  by  the  child,  and  re- 
quires certain  circumstances  favorable  to  it.  For  the  child  to  judge  that  a  thing  is 
food,  it  is  not  enough  that  he  should  have  the  idea  of  food,  but  he  must  have  some 
experience  of  the  thing  seen,  to  enable  him  to  recognize  it  as  food. 


MORAL  RULES.  189 


Section  2.  —  Morality y  or  Moral  Rule^ 

273.  Let  us  pass  on  now  from  theoretical  judgments  to 
the  practical  moral  principles  which  guide  the  child's  actions. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  child  has  no  rules  of 
morality,  —  a  mistake  included  in  the  common  and  most 
ancient  prejudice,  that  the  child  has  no  use  of  reason,  said 
reason  appearing,  according  to  the  vulgar,  quite  suddenly, 
and  as  if  by  magic,  at  the  age  of  seven  years. 

The  whole  tendency  of  the  present  work  is  to  destroy  this 
unfortunate  popular  error.  And,  as  regards  the  rules  of 
morality,  we  have  seen  that  the  child  gives  signs  of  them  as 
early  as  the  second  order  of  its  cognitions.  The  earliest  of 
all  such  rules  may  be  reduced  to  two,  which  we  have  formu- 
lated thus  :  1.  "  That  which  is  beautiful,  animated,  and  in- 
telligent deserves  admiration."  2.  "That  which  is  beautiful, 
animated,  and  intelligent  deserves  benevolence."  Not  that 
the  child  has  yet  any  idea  of  merit ;  but,  his  nature  being 
intelligent  and  moral,  he  feels  the  consequent  necessity  of 
admiring  and  loving  this  beautiful,  animated,  intelligent 
thing,  which  he  perceives  by  his  sensations,  and  with  which 
lie  is  in  vital  communication. 

274.  What  modifications  do  these  laws  intrinsic  to  the 
child's  moral  nature  undergo,  when  he  reaches  the  third 
order  of  cognitions  ?  Do  they  cease  to  be  ?  Do  they  lose 
their  force  ?     Are  others  added  to  them  ? 

The  moral  nature  of  man  can  never  lose  its  primary  laws ; 
it  will  always  feel  the  need  to  admire  and  to  love  that  which 
is  beautiful,  animated,  and  intelligent,  and  only  through 
violence  or  perversion  will  it  cease  to  do  so.  But  it  is  true 
that,  besides  these  primary  laws,  others  will  arise  in  the 
human  soul.  Each  age,  each  order  of  cognition,  has  its 
moral  rules  ;  their  aim,  their  essence,  remain  the  same ;  for 
all  tend  to  prescribe  esteem  and  love  for  what  is  beautiful, 


190  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

animated,  and  intelligent ;  but  they  lead  man  to  this  common 
end  by  different  ways ;  they  speak  to  him  an  ever  new  lan- 
guage, suited  to  the  new  condition  of  his  mind  :  man  believes 
that  he  is  always  gaining  new  moral  maxims,  when  in  fact  it 
is  always  the  same  immutable,  eternal  maxim  taking  new 
forms  in  his  mind,  manifesting  itself  anew.  We  must,  then, 
follow  these  manifestations,  these  ever  fresh  expressions  of 
moral  duty,  generated  in  the  human  mind  with  each  new 
order  of  cognition ;  and  this  is  what  we  now  purpose  to  do 
as  regards  the  third  of  these  orders. 

275.  What,  then,  are  the  rules  of  morality  for  the  child, 
when  it  has  reached  this  third  order  ? 

Admiration  and  benevolence  were  already  born  in  him  in 
the  second  order.  These  impulses,  which  were  effects  of  the 
primary  laws  of  his  nature,  change,  with  his  entrance  into 
the  third  order,  into  moral  rules  which  run  as  follows : 

That  which  is  in  conformity  with  what  I  admire  is  good. 

That  which  is  in  conformity  with  what  I  love  is  good. 

That  which  is  contrary  to  both  is  bad. 

That  which  neither  conforms  nor  is  contrary  to  what  I 
admire  and  love  is  indifferent. 

276.  These  moral  rules  of  the  fourth  period  of  childhood 
differ  widely  from  those  earliest  rules  which  govern  the  child 
in  the  preceding  period.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  per- 
sons under  whose  control  he  lives  can  largely  influence  the 
development  and  direction  of  his  admiration  and  benevolent 
affections.  By  exercising  this  influence  in  their  every  word 
and  deed,  they  can  narrow  or  widen  the  sphere  of  childish 
benevolence  ;  they  can  excite  in  the  infant  mind  the  feeling 
of  malevolence  ;  inspire  it  with  aversion  for  certain  objects, 
and  desire  for  certain  others.  We  pointed  out  before  how 
important  it  is  to  keep  out  of  children's  minds  the  percep- 
tion and  thought  of  evil,  that  is,  of  the  morally  ugly,  and  to 
labor  to  fill  them  only  with  love  and  admiration,  so  that 


MORAL  RULES.  191 

these  affections  may  preserve  the  widest  possible  range.  I 
believe  that,  in  this  way,  an  immense  influence  may  be  exer- 
cised towards  insuring  a  moral  and  virtuous  life  in  manhood, 
and  towards  preventing  the  growth  of  the  passions  by  which 
manhood  is  most  fiercely  assaulted.  But  the  happy  influ- 
ence of  this  earliest  moral  education  shows  itself  at  once  in 
the  next  intellectual  period  ;  for  on  it  depends  whether  the 
moral  standards  which  the  child  forms  for  himself  at  that 
age  shall  be  true  or  false,  in  harmony  with,  or  opposed  to, 
the  nature  of  things,  shall  deceive  him  or  lead  him  aright. 

It  is  evident  that,  if  his  moral  standards  are  those  we  have 
named  above,  ^.  e.,  "That  is  good  which  is  in  conformity 
with  what  I  admire  or  love,"  and,  ''That  is  bad  which  is 
opposed  to  what  I  admire  and  love,"  etc.,  the  child's  rules 
of  action  will  be  true  or  false,  right  or  wrong,  according  as 
his  admiration  and  love  have  been  ill  or  well  directed  and 
cultivated.  The  character  of  the  moral  rule  will  clearly  de- 
pend on  the  moulding  of  his  mind  through  the  preceding 
period.  Hence  we  see  the  importance  of  making  sure  that 
the  earliest  impression  on  his  soul,  the  earliest  springs  of 
esteem  and  affection  laid  there,  should  be  wholly  pure  and 
natural,  neither  falsified  nor  altered  by  art,  nor  corrupted  by 
ignorance  or  malice.  For,  if  the  moral  rules  which  guide 
action  are  themselves  falsified  and  warped  by  the  first  wTong 
impression  made  on  his  mind,  how  shall  the  child,  with  false 
standards,  before  his  eyes,  guide  himself  aright?  Even  with 
the  wish  to  go  right,  he  would  not  have  the  power.  Parents 
and  teachers  continually  exclaim  about  the  natural  perversity 
of  children ;  but  this  perversity  is  not  always  a  physical 
necessity,  an  innate  evil.  It  seems  so  only  because  we  do 
not  see  the  secret  workings  continually  going  on  in  their 
little  minds,  by  which  their  estimate  of  things  has  been 
thoroughly  falsified :  false  principles  have  got  into  their 
little  heads,  which  they  obey  faithfully  before  they  can  ex- 


192  ON   THE   IIULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

press  them,  and  the  origin  of  which  no  one  could  explain : 
no  one,  indeed,  has  actually  instilled  tliem  ;  but  their  minds, 
which  are  never  idle,  and  are  always  working  out  principles, 
following  in  this  also  their  unalterable  nature,  go  on  con- 
structing and  confirming  for  themselves  certain  profoundly 
false  persuasions,  which  secretly  govern  their  conduct,  and 
are  the  cause  of  their  every  action,  down  to  the  most  capri- 
cious and  inexplicable.  They  are  the  only  beacons  of  the 
child's  soul,  which,  guiding  itself  by  their  deceptive  light, 
inevitably  goes  astray. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ACTIVE  FACULTIES  IN  THE  FOURTH 
PERIOD  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

ARTICLE    I. 
INCREASE  OF  SPONTANEOUS   ACTIVITY. 

277.  At  the  age  which  the  child  has  now  reached,  we 
cannot  yet  speak  of  his  actions  as  /ree,  but  only  as  sj^on- 
taneous.  In  the  Anthropology  we  have  shown  the  wonderful 
laws  which  govern  spontaneity,  whether  it  be  purel}^  animal, 
or  intellectual  and  moral. 

Among  the  spontaneous  volitions  must  be  classed  the 
affective,  the  estimative,  and  the  appreciative.  The  effective 
and  appreciative  volitions  already  show  themselves  in  the 
second  period  of  childhood,  through  the  first  order  of  cogni- 
tions (132-136). 

In  the  third  period,  the  estimative  volitions  are  manifested 
more  explicitly  through  the  second  grade  of  cognitions 
(183,  184). 

The  development  of  these  two  kinds  of  volition  continues 
through  the  fourth  period ;  but  the  third  kind,  the  appreci- 
ative, which  requires  the  comparison  of  two  or  more  objects, 
is  still   absent,  and  cannot   be  formed  until  the  child  has 


MOKAL   RULES.  193 

succeeded  not  only  in  counting  two  objects,  which  is  done  in 
the  third  order  of  cognitions,  but  also  in  comparing  them 
together,  and  finding  their  differences,  —  a  process  which 
belongs,  as  we  shall  see,  to  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions. 

278.  The  increase  of  affective  and  estimative  volitions 
which  takes  place  in  the  child  implies  a  constantly  increasing 
spontaneity^  a  constantly  growing  amount  of  effective  activ- 
ity. This  spontaneous  action,  not  being  yet  tempered  and 
controlled  by  the  free  will  wherewith  the  man  governs  him- 
self, displays  in  its  manifestations  its  own  nature  and  laws. 

I  have  shown  that  the  following  are  the  two  principal  laws 
of  spontaneous  action :  (1)  That  it  requires  a  stimulus  to 
set  it  in  motion.  (2)  That  the  activity  produced  is  greater 
in  proportion  than  the  stimulus.^ 

This  superabundance  of  action  is  due  partly  to  the  activ- 
ity of  the  mind  itself,  partly  to  the  law  of  inertia,  by  which 
whatever  has  been  set  in  motion  continues  to  move  till 
arrested  by  some  other  force.  This  law  can  be  obsei^ed 
in  the  activity  of  children,  and,  as  I  am  always  in  search  of 
facts  to  lay  before  the  reader,  as  the  only  trustworthy 
guarantees  of  what  I  affirm,  I  shall  quote  here  the  observa- 
tions of  one  who  assuredly  had  no  thought  of  supporting  my 
opinions :  — 

"  The  tendency  of  all  the  senses  towards  development,  and  to 
the  overflow  of  life,  as  it  were,  from  within  outwards,  produces  in 
children  a  degree  of  external  activity  out  of  proportion  to  the 
inward  motive  impelling  to  it.  Louisa  certainly  kisses  me  more 
than  she  loves  me,  as  she  cries  more  than  she  feels  sorry,  and 
laughs  more  than  she  feels  glad ;  ^  and  in  every  case  the  expansive 

1  See  Anthropology,  Nos.  392-400,  419-425,  443-454. 

2  There  is  often  another  cause  for  this  exaggeration  in  children.  They  not  only 
want  to  relieve  themselves,  but  to  make  those  around  them  share  their  feelings, 
and  so  try  to  make  the  latter  appear  stronger  than  they  really  are.  We  have  here 
one  of  those  instances  of  refined  cunning  which  prove  but  too  well  that  the  child- 
ish nature  is  not  altogether  trutliful.  But  we  shall  speak,  further  on,  of  the 
untruthfulness  of  children. 


194  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

action,  which  is  stronger  than  its  cause,  acts  after  the  cause  has 
ceased.  Thus  she  goes  on  crying,  though  her  pain  is  gone,  and, 
when  she  has  given  vent  to  the  craving  for  affection  which  brought 
her  to  me,  she  will  go  on  pouring  out  her  caresses  on  my  chair  or 
my  table."  ^ 

ARTICLE    II. 

DESULTORINESS   OF  ACTION. 

279.  Another  characteristic  of  the  child's  activity  is  its 
desultoriness,  the  absence  of  connections  in  his  acts  of 
volition,  and,  consequently,  in  the  external  actions  which 
are  their  result.^ 

If  we  admit  the  principle  that  all  activity  in  man  comes 
from  a  preceding  passivity,  and,  in  consequence,  that  all 
volitional  activity  follows  on  the  conceptions  of  the  intellect, 
we  shall  see  that  this  absence  of  connection  in  his  external 
movements  and  actions  comes  from  the  absence  of  connec- 
tion in  the  child's  ideas. 

In  the  second  period  of  childhood,  the  conceptions  which 
excite  and  direct  the  intellectual  attention^  are  the  percep- 
tions, each  of  which  is  independent  of  every  other.  This 
want  of  connection  in  the  child's  actions  does  not,  however, 
strike  us  so  much  at  that  age,  because  its  activity  is  as  yet 
feeble,  and  it  attains  its  objects  immediately. 

In  the  third  period,  the  activity  of  the  child  busies  itself 
with  abstractions  also.  These  primary  abstractions  have 
no  connection  with  each  other ;  hence  the  corresponding  ac- 

1  Mme.  Guizol,  Lettres  de  famille  sur  V education,  L.  I. 

2  See  Anthropology,  Nos.  623-627. 

3  It  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  always  of  the  activity  of  the  will  follow- 
ing intelligence  that  we  speak.  Contemporaneous  with,  and  bound  up  in,  this 
activity  which  belongs  to  the  order  of  intelligence,  there  is  also  the  animal  activity. 
The  latter  has,  indeed,  a  certain  unity  of  its  own,  arising  from  the  unity  of  the  ani- 
mal subject;  but  it  is  of  slight  importance,  and  escapes  the  observation  of  those 
who  are  seeking  the  more  important  unity  which  properly  belongs  to  the  rational 
subject.  Moreover,  the  animal  activity  really  diminishes  with  the  birth  and  growth 
of  the  intellectual  activity,  and  more  and  more  escapes  observation,  as  the  latter  is 
more  and  more  engrossed  by  the  rational  activity,  which  soon  becomes  dominant. 


DESULTORINESS   OF   ACTION.  195 

tion  is  disconnected,  and  moves  here  and  there,  as  from  a 
thousand  different  centres.  The  greater  the  activity,  the 
more  disconnected  it  appears.  At  this  age,  action  does  not, 
as  in  the  preceding  one,  attain  its  term,  the  real  object  it  is 
seeking,  immediately,  but  must  pass  through  the  intermedi- 
ate step,  that,  namely,  of  the  abstract  idea. 

In  the  fourth  period,  the  child's  active  power  goes  on 
increasing  in  amount,  and  there  is  as  yet  nothing  to  make 
this  evident,  the  principles  of  his  action  being  infinite,  ^.  e., 
as  many  as  the  ideas  of  which  his  acts  are  the  application. 
As  he  proceeds  in  his  development,  these  ideas  will  group 
themselves  together,  these  principles  of  action  will  slowly 
become  more  general,  and  then  the  activity  of  the  human 
being  will  of  itself,  and  as  if  by  magic,  become  an  ordered 
activity,  gathering  itself  together  and  drawing  ever  nearer  to 
unity.  Meanwhile,  the  adult  is  annoyed  by  this  versatility 
of  the  child,  which  is  incomprehensible  to  him,  and  he  at- 
tempts to  impose  on  the  little  creature  the  rules  which  most 
properly  govern  connected  action,  but  are  useless  and  inap- 
plicable to  a  being  who  has  not  one  impulse,  but  many,  each 
wholly  disconnected  with  the  other ;  each  by  itself  being 
unsusceptible  of  such  rules,  and  each  being  unconscious  of 
the  others,  so  that  they  have  no  common  existence.  This  is 
the  cause  of  some  of  the  greatest  difficulties  of  the  educator.^ 

Later  on,  we  shall  see  how  fancy  enters  into  the  activity 
of  the  child  and  increases  its  fickleness. 

ARTICLE   III. 

PLAY. 

280.  To  this  desultory  activity  of  the  child  belongs  its 
play,  in  which  there  is  a  great  deal  of  action   and  a  con- 

1  Mad.  Guizot  shows  how  truly  she  has  observed  this  when  she  notes  the  diffi- 
culty *^de  saisir  et  de  retenir  cesfils  dilUs  et  volages,dont  la  reunion  doit  former 
unjour  le  tissu  de  la  raison,  Venchatnement  de  ses  idies,  V ensemble  de  sa  conduite. 
L.I. 


196  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

stant  succession  of  unconnected,  but  ever  new,  impressions. 
The  impulse  towards  motion  of  every  kind  is  explicable 
also  by  animal  instincts.  Motion  is  pleasant  and  healthy 
for  the  animal,  whose  movements  are  certainly  not  gov- 
erned by  any  rational  principle,  since  none  exists,  but  have 
each  its  reason  and  determination  in  the  laws  of  animal 
nature. 

To  movements  of  this  kind,  apparently  without  any  rule 
or  motive  but  pleasure,  we  give  the  name  of  play,  and  con- 
sider them  under  a  burlesque  aspect,  which  inclines  us  to 
laugh.  The  animal,  however,  has  no  more  sense  of  fun  in 
them  than  in  the  taking  of  food.  All  that  belongs  to 
laughter  is  foreign  to  its  nature.  But  the  capricious  dis- 
order of  such  gestures  and  movements  give  us  a  sense  of 
grotesque  surprise  which  makes  us  laugh.  The  grotesque- 
ness  lies  in  these  movements  as  compared  with  ordinary 
movements  governed  by  reason,  and  the  surprise,  in  the 
unexpectedness  of  their  continual  novelty  and  singularity. 

281.  The  strange  thing  is  that  the  child  soon  finds  some- 
thing laughable  in  his  own  play ;  this  becomes  more  and 
more  apparent  to  him  as  his  reason  develops,  and  is  a  new 
source  of  enjoyment.  He  laughs  at  what  he  does  himself 
and  sees  other  children  do ;  yet  it  is  not  at  himself  that  he 
is  really  laughing,  for  at  himself  he  never  laughs.  It  is  the 
sign  that  he  has  become  aware  of  the  frivolity,  the  extrava- 
gance of  his  actions,  and  the  educator  should  take  advantage 
of  this  indication ;  he  should  foster  and  perfect  the  child's 
self-acquired  sense  of  the  incongruity  between  his  sports 
and  his  dignity  as  a  rational  being,  and  use  this  conscious- 
ness to  lead  him  to  quiet  and  orderly  behavior. 

Hence,  it  is  a  mistake  to  applaud  what  is  ridiculous  in 
childish  action.  The  natural  movements  may  be  allowed  so 
long  as  they  are  produced  by  the  animal  nature,  as  it  were, 
without  the  knowledge  of  reason ;  but,  when  reason  inter- 


MORAL   ACTIVITY.  197 

venes  and  judges  them  as  in  a  certain  degree  unworthy,  they 
should  be  gradually  left  off,  and  the  child  should  learn  to 
feel  ashamed  of  them.  The  educator  should  always  add  his 
influence  to  the  child's  own  reason,  to  support  and  strengthen 
it.  To  this  wild  and  unruly  play  should  succeed  the  orderly 
exercises  of  gymnastics. 

The  play,  however,  which  consists  in  the  constant  destruc- 
tion of  new  things,  is  not  found  amongst  animals  ;  it  belongs 
to  man  alone,  who  finds  in  it  the  delight  of  satisfying  his 
curiosity  and  his  eagerness  to  perceive  and  know  things 
under  every  possible  aspect.  I  have  already  said  that  this 
kind  of  play  may  be  of  use  in  developing  intelligence,  if  the 
teacher  knows  how  to  take  advantage  of  it ;  and  it  will 
become  in  his  hands  a  real  and  delightful  method  of  instruc- 
tion in  mathematics.^ 

ARTICLE   IV. 

MORAL  ACTIVITY. 

282.  At  this  age  the  moral  activity  of  the  child  shows 
itself  principally  under  two  forms,  the  right  of  property  and 
obedience.  Both  are  the  effects  of  the  child's  benevolence 
and  admiration. 

At  the  first  stage  of  cognition,  he  neither  possessed  any- 
thing, nor  obeyed  ;  but  he  admired  and  loved.  He  had  per- 
ceived intelligent  beings  and  beautiful  objects  of  his  affection 
and  admiration,  with  which  he  communicated  through  sym- 
pathy and  the  instinct  of  imitation.,  but  without  any  under- 
standing as  yet  of  their  thoughts  or  desires.  Be  it  noted 
here  that  the  sympathy  and  instinct  of  imitation,  manifested 
in  the  animal  order,  belong  also  to  that  of  intelligence. 
These  laws,   common  to  both  the  animal  and  intellective 

1  See  Froebel's  Kindergarten  Gifts  and  Games,  as  supplying  exactly  the  or- 
dered and  constructive  play  desired  by  Rosmini  for  children  at  this  age.  —  Trans" 
lator. 


198  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

principles,  are  so  admirably  interwoven  that  the  one  passes 
into  the  other  without  any  perceptible  interruption.^ 

283.  Now,  as  soon  as  the  child  values  and  Ukes  a  thing, 
he  conceives  at  once  the  sense  of  property ;  in  other  words, 
the  thing  becomes,  as  it  were,  spiritually  united  to  him,  and 
he  resents  its  being  taken  from  him,  as  if  it  were  the  loss  of 
a  part  of  himself.^  The  things  belonging  to  those  he  loves 
are  perceived  by  him  together  with  them,  and,  therefore,  he 
cannot  bear  to  see  them  taken  away ;  it  is  like  taking  away 
a  part  of  the  persons  themselves  (238).  This  feeling 
springs,  in  the  first  instance,  from  the  animal  unitive  force 
(and  similar  phenomena  may  be  noticed  in  animals)  ;  thus 
the  will  (the  affective  volitions)  comes  to  the  assistance  of 
the  natural  animal  desires ;  next,  the  understanding  also 
perceives  the  advantage  of  contemplating  lovely  things,  and 
is  pained  if  they  are  withdrawn  from  its  contemplation ; 
finally  (and  certainly  very  much  later),  the  understanding 
arrives  at  a  knowledge  of  the  uses  of  the  things,  and  values 
them  for  these  also,  after  which  the  will  clings  to  them  with 
a  new  and  less  noble  love  than  before, — the  love  of  self- 
interest.  Out  of  these  elements  the  material  part  of  the 
right  of  property  is  gradually  built  up :  its  formal  part  can 
be  given  to  it  only  by  the  sense  of  duty,  the  moral  law. 

1  The  instinct  of  imitation  is  communicated  to  the  understanding  even  before 
the  latter  perceives  through  the  affective  volitions  the  things  to  be  imitated.  The 
animal  instinct  impels  the  whole  sensitive  and  willing  subject  towards  its  object, 
because  the  subject  wills  that  to  which  the  animal  instinct  impels  it,  without  know- 
ing 'really  what  it  is  that  it  wills  ;  it  wants  to  make  the  animal  operations  easier, 
without  knowing  that,  in  doing  so,  it  is  imitating.  The  intellective  sympathy  acts 
more  directly ;  the  intelligent  being  inclines  to  take  the  form  which  it  sees,  or 
believes  it  sees,  in  another  intelligent  being,  of  which  it  has  the  perception.  This 
again  is,  at  first,  aided  by  the  instinct  of  imitation. 

2  The  following  facts  show  how  the  child  perceives  things  associated  together 
as  one  thing.  —  "No  image  stands  alone  in  his  mind,"  says  an  observer  ;  "be  does 
not  separate  the  surroundings,  the  accessories,  from  the  principal  subject ;  they 
form  part  of  his  idea  of  it.  I  have  seen  a  child  nine  months  old  cry  bitterly  and 
refuse  its  food  because  the  cup,  saucer,  and  spoon  were  not  placed  exactly  as 
usual.  It  becomes  a  natural  necessity  to  them  (the  children)  to  see  everything  in 
its  place,"  etc.  —Mad.  Necker  pe  Saussuhe,  L.  IH,  c,  i. 


PROPERTY   AND   OBEDIENCE.  -109 

If  in  the  first  stage  of  cognition,  the  child  perceives 
beauty  in  things,  in  the  second,  when  they  are  taken  from 
him  he  has  the  painful  feeling  of  deprivation ;  in  the  third, 
he  abstracts  their  action  from  the  things  themselves,  and 
begins  to  value  them  for  their  uses,  or  at  least  is  preparing 
himself  to  do  so. 

284.  From  the  same  source  of  admiration  and  benevo- 
lence springs,  as  I  have  said,  the  child's  obedience. 

In  him  obedience  is  only  the  wish  and  the  will  to  conform 
himself  to  the  intelligent  beings  which  have  become  the 
objects  of  his  affections.  From  the  beginning,  he  strives 
after  this  conformity,  through  sympathy  and  intellective 
animal  imitation.  But,  when  he  has  reached  the  second 
order  of  cognitions,  he  acquires,  in  learning  to  speak,  a  new 
means  of  communication  between  his  mind  and  the  minds  of 
those  dear  and  precious  to  him.  A  new  light  dawns  upon 
him ;  he  can  look  into  their  minds,  and  there  discover 
thoughts  and  will ;  with  these  he  finds  new  ways  by  which 
he  can  unite  and  suit  himself  to  them.  These  discoveries 
he  makes  by  means  of  language,  which  he  begins  to  learn 
in  the  second  stage  of  cognitions,  and  goes  on  with  through 
the  following  ones. 

The  key  which  language  furnishes  him  in  the  third  order 
of  cognitions  enables  him  to  read  the  opinions  and  wishes 
of  his  fellow-beings.  From  his  perception  of  these  soon 
follow  in  the  child  belief  and  obedience. 

Belief  is  in  him  only  the  wish,  the  tendency,  to  think  the 
same  as  the  persons  he  lives  with. 

Obedience^  at  first,  is  also  a  similar  wish  and  tendency  to 
be  of  the  same  mind  with  those  around  him. 

In  this  their  primitive  form,  the  belief  and  obedience  of 
the  child  arise,  then,  from  his  craving  to  be  at  one  with  those 
who  are  known  to  him. 

285.  This  craving  for  uniformity  felt  by  human  souls,  as 


200  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF    METHOD. 

soon  as  they  come  to  a  knowledge  of  each  other,  is  a  pro- 
found and  mysterious  thing ;  to  explain  it  satisfactorily,  we 
should  have  to  enter  into  the  religious  secret  of  ontological 
doctrine.  This  would  be  impossible  here.  We  must  content 
ourselves  with  clearly  setting  forth  the  facts. 

The  first  of  these  facts  is,  that  the  child  shows  signs  of 
respect  and  affection  to  whatever  person  first  smiles  at  him. 
At  that  time  he  is  simply  just ;  there  is  no  acceptance  of 
persons  with  him ;  he  is  a  judge  who,  since  the  names  of 
those  who  would  cajole  him  are  to  him  unknown,  judges 
impartially  secundum  allegata  et  probata:  his  tendency  to 
respect  and  benevolence  is  universal.  In  the  intelligent 
being,  then,  rooted  in  the  depths  of  his  nature,  there  is  this 
primary  necessity  of  growing  respect  and  love  to  whatsoever 
intelligent  being  he  comes  to  know.  Here  is  the  great  fact 
on  which,  as  upon  a  rock,  is  founded  the  whole  of  morality. 
I  must  refer  the  reader  to  the  theory  I  have  given  of  it 
elsewhere.-^ 

As  the  affection  which  the  child  gives  to  the  persons  he 
knows  springs  from  this  primary  necessity,  so  again  from 
this  affection  springs  his  need  to  be  perfectly  at  one  with 
them.  It  is  often  said  that  love  either  finds  or  makes  a 
likeness  between  the  persons  loved.  It  may  be  added  with 
equal  truth,  that  love  makes  a  likeness  between  him  who 
loves  and  him  who  is  loved ;  and  the  reason  is  plain :  love 
requires  union,  —  a  union  so  close  that  it  tends  to  become 
an  actual  fusion  of  two  into  one.  Such  a  union,  however, 
such  an  intermingling  of  two  beings,  can  take  place  only 
through  conformity  of  thought,  by  which  two  minds  unite 
in  one  judgment,  and  conformity  of  desires,  by  which  two 
hearts  are  united  in  one  aspiration,  —  have  the  same  good, 
the  same  evil,  rejoice  together  in  the  first,  suffer  together 

*  Philosophy  of  Morals,  Worlm, 


RESPECT   AND   LOVE.  201 

from  the  last,  move  as  one  toward  the  good,  draw  away  as 
one  from  the  evil.  I  repeat  that  here  lie  mysteries  into 
which  I  will  not  enter  here.  I  only  state  that  such  is  the 
fact.  And,  in  witness  of  it,  I  appeal  to  all ;  for  there  lives 
no  human  creature  that  does  not  love. 

286.  If,  instead  of  the  direct  expression  of  this  fact,  we 
wish  to  give  it  a  scientific  form,  we  may  put  it  as  follows : 

When  one  being  having  intelligence  and  will  meets  an- 
other, the  natural  effects  manifested  by  him  are  respect 
and  affection.  * 

That  is  the  first  part  of  the  fact ;  the  second  is  this  : 

When  an  intelligent  being  has  perceived  another,  and, 
yielding  to  the  law  of  his  nature,  has  opened  his  heart  to 
the  feelings  of  respect  and  love,  these  feelings  impose  a 
moral  necessity  to  conform  his  own  beliefs  to  the  beliefs  ^  of 
that  other,  and  his  will  to  the  other's  will,  as  soon  as  he 
learns  what  they  are.^ 

The  idea  of  deception  can  come  to  the  child  only  from 
experience,  as  only  from  experience  can  he  get  the  idea  that 
harm  will  come  to  him  from  conforming  to  the  will  of  others. 
The  very  conception  of  good  and  evil  enters  later  into  the 
child's  mind.  He  has  only  the  two  tendencies,  to  belief  and 
obedience^  pure  and  simple,  neither  disturbed  nor  restrained 
by  suspicion,  and  therefore  in  their  greatest  strength.  This 
is  the  primitive  foundation  of  the  facility  with  which  the 
child  believes  and  obeys.  They  are  the  natural  tendencies 
of  an  intelligent  being,  to  which  the  child  yields  because 
nothing  opposes  his  spontaneous  impulse. 

1  By  the  word  beliefs  I  mean  the  opinions,  convictions,  judgments,  which  are 
not  only  present  to  the  mind,  but  to  which  it  has  given  assent. 

2  Hence  is  derived  a  very  general  principle,  i.  e.,  that  every  intelligence 
should  be  believed  in  and  obeyed.  This  is  the  rule;  the  contrary  is  the  exception. 
If  an  intelligence  deceives  or  is  deceived  ;  if  its  desires  are  stupid  or  perverse,  that 
is  only  the. effect  of  its  accidental  corruption.  With  this  recondite  principle  may 
be  connected  the  fine  sentence  of  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  who  used  to  say  that  the 
virtue  of  obedience  CQuld  be  exercised  towards  all  men,  even  towards  inferiors. 


202  ON    THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

CHAPTER    V. 

THE    INSTRUCTION    CORRESPONDING    TO    THE    COGNITIONS    OF 
THE     THIRD     ORDER. 

ARTICLE    I. 

WHAT    IS     MEANT     MORE    FULLY     BY    INSTRUCTION    CORRESPONDING    TO    A 
CERTAIN    ORDER     OF    COGNITIONS. 

287.  We  come  now  to  the  instruction  and  moral  educa- 
tion corresponding  to  the  order  of  cognitions  previously 
treated  of.  Although  the  reader  knows  generally  what  we 
mean  by  such  instruction,  I  will  put  it  into  more  definite 
terms,  to  avoid  any  misunderstanding  or  objection  to  the 
method  I  have  laid  down. 

The  instruction,  then,  corresponding  to  a  given  order  of 
cognitions  has  three  perfectly  distinct   parts : 

(1)  The  instruction  which  serves  to  increase  in  the  mind 
of  the  pupil  the  number  of  cognitions  he  has  gained  in  the 
preceding  order  and  to  make  them  more  perfect. 

(2)  The  instruction  which  enables  the  pupil  to  pass  from 
the  order  of  cognition  in  which  he  finds  himself  to  the  next 
higher  one. 

(3)  The  instruction  which  serves  to  exercise  and  perfect 
the  pupil  in  the  knowledge  belonging  to  the  order  he  has 
reached. 

The  important  distinction  between  these  three  parts  suf- 
fices to  dispel  any  fear  that  our  method  will  retard  the  pro- 
gress of  the  human  mind.  On  the  contrary,  it  points  out 
the  most  direct,  the  quickest,  and  the  pleasantest  way  the 
mind  can  take  in  its  natural  progress. 

ARTICLE  11. 
THE  LANGUAGE  AND  STYLE  TO  BE  USED  BY  THE  TEACHER. 

288.  It  is  evident  that  the  language  and  style  of  the 
teacher   should   vary   according  to   the   order  of  cognition 


LANGUAGE.  203 

attained  by  the  child.  As  language  and  its  component 
parts  involve  a  somewhat  extensive  range  of  cognitions,  it 
follows  that  not  every  word  of  a  language  can  be  brought 
into  use  in  speaking  to  a  little  child.  Such  words  as  can- 
not be  classed  under  one  or  other  of  the  three  parts  of 
instruction  pointed  out  above,  as  suitable  to  his  degree  of 
development,  i.  e.,  those  belonging  to  an  anterior  order  of 
cognitions,  those  of  the  following  order  which  his  mind  can 
reach  at  its  next  step,  or  those  in  that  order  which  it  has 
already  reached,  are  simply  wasted ;  and,  being  unintelligible 
to  him,  they  only  tend  to  confuse  and  disturb  the  progress 
of  his  ideas,  like  stones  thrown  across  his  path,  and  make  it 
more  difficult  for  him  to  understand  even  such  words  as 
are  within  the  reach  of  his  intelligence. 

289.  We  have  seen  that  the  child,  on  arriving  at  the 
second  order  of  cognitions,  can  understand  nouns, ^  and,  at 
the  third,  verbs,  but  neither  the  declensions  of  the  former 
nor  the  conjugations  of  the  latter,  which  involve  too  much 
reflection  on  the  relations  of  things.  What  he  understands 
is  the  noun  in  its  simplest  form,  and  the  verb  in  the  infinitive 
mode,  together  with  the  participial  forms  in  which  the  verb 
is  still  a  noun,  but  one  expressing  action.  At  this  stage, 
then,  only  such  words  and  such  forms  must  be  used  as  pre- 
suppose no  more  than  the  next  order  of  cognitions,  to  which 
the  child's  mind  should  now  pass  on,  and  which,  in  the  pres- 
ent case^  is  the  fourth.  In  talking  to  children,  we  must  con- 
fine ourselves,  as  much  as  possible,  to  these  words  and  forms, 
and  through  them  we  shall  find  and  keep  open  the  means 
of  communication  between  our  adult  minds  and  theirs. 

We  may  say  the  same  of  the  manner  of  speaking  and 
of  the  thoughts  expressed  to  them.  Neither  should  require 
cognitions  beyond  those  of  the  fourth  order,  at  most,  and 

1  Interjections  are  not  properly  words,  but  effects  of  animal  sensations,  felt 
alike  by  the  animal  and  the  new-born  infant. 


204  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

those  which  can  be  connected  with  snch  cognitions  of  the 
preceding  order  as  akeady  exist  in  the  child's  mind. 

ARTICLE    HI. 

MATTER  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

Section  l.—^c/ion. 

290.  The  child  at  every  age  must  act.  His  activity  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  three  kinds  :  corporal,  intellectual,  and 
moral.  He  requires  all  three  as  means  of  development ; 
but  they  should  be  properly  directed. 

As  to  the  quantity  of  action,  the  activity  natural  to  the 
child  should  be  neither  repressed  nor  excited,  but  only 
moderated,  when  its  excess  might  endanger  health. 

Xs  to  quality^  only  such  activity  should  be  encouraged 
as  is  proportioned  to  the  degree  of  knowledge  attained. 
The  difficulty  is  to  ascertain  exactly  what  that  is. 

As  to  regularity^  two  rules  should  be  observed : 

(1)  The  order  between  the  different  kinds  of  activity, 
which  subordinates  and  makes  the  corporal  activity  sub- 
servient to  the  intellectual,  and  both  to  the  moral. 

(2)  The  order  within  each  kind,  securing  in  each  uniform- 
ity, steadiness,  and  regularity,  —  in  short,  the  utmost  rea- 
sonableness possible. 

To  teach  and  guide  the  child  in  these  things  is  really  to 
educate  him. 

Section  2.  —  Oral  Exercises. 

291.  Although  the  child  might,  so  soon  as  he  can  speak 
a  little,  be  taught  to  read,  I  think  it  preferable  to  keep 
him  still  in  the  preparatory  scJiool  of  oral  exercises. 

These  exercises  consist  of  two  parts,  the  intellectual  and 
the  mechanical.  Both  should  be  combined  in  the  exercises 
prescribed  to  the  child. 

I  have  already  recommended  (188  and  foil.)   that  from 


-  MATTER   OF   INSTRUCTION.  205 

the  second  stage  of  cognition  tlie  child  be  made  to  name 
as  many  things  as  possible.'^ 

This  exercise  belongs  to  the  intellectual  division^  and 
should  be  continued,  not  only  now,  but  through  many  fol- 
lowing stages  of  knowledge.  Hitherto,  the  child  has  gone 
no  further  than  nouns;  but  he  should  now  be  exercised  in 
verbs'^  and  in  the  other  parts  of  speech,  observing  the 
same  rules  as  before. 

The  mechanical  exercise  should  now  be  joined  to  the 
intellectual  and  alternated  with  it.  This  exercise  consists 
in  correcting  the  pronunciation  of  children,  and  teaching 
them  the  perfect  use  of  their  organs  gf  speech. 

292.  In  fact,  the  first  thing  to  be  done,  as  soon  as  chil- 
dren begin  to  speak  a  little,  is  to  teach  them  to  bring  out 

1  Every  thought  of  the  child  is  complex,  and  he  has  not  yet  analyzed  it.  Hence, 
the  first  thing  the  child  understands  is  the  whole  of  what  is  said  to  him,  i.  e.,  the 
meaning  of  the  whole  sentence,  not  of  the  single  words.  This  fact  has  been 
already  noted.  Some  observations  lead  me  to  think  that  he  (the  child)  does  not 
separate  them  {the  conjunctions  and  particles  of  the  sentence)  from  the  sentence 
of  which  they  form  a  part.  That  sentence  to  him  is  one  long  word,  the  meaning 
of  which  he  guesses  through  his  wonderful  sympathy,  —  a  long  word  which  he 
repeats  distinctly,  if  his  ear  is  true  and  his  vocal  organ  docile,  or  which  he  mangles 
and  shortens  if  they  be  not,  but  which  he  does  not  decompose.  Even  when  he 
meets  with  the  same  words  in  different  sentences  he  does  not  immediately  recog- 
nize them.  They  remain  to  him  what  syllables  are  to  us,  which  we  meet  with 
everywhere  without  attaching  any  meaning  to  them.  Perhaps  it  is  only  reading 
tliat  teaches  us  the  real  divisions  of  words.  This  is  the  reason  why  we  find  that  the 
common  people,  who  write  without  having  read  much,  bind  their  words  together, 
in  the  oddest  fashion,  and  connect  or  disconnect  them  at  random.  (Mad.  Necker 
de  Saussure,  L.  II.  c.  ii.)  Hence,  by  making  the  child  listen  to  the  separate  words, 
we  lead  him  to  know  the  parts  of  speech.  In  this  sense  it  is  true  that  languages,  as 
defined  by  Condillac,  are  so  many  analytical  methods.  Observe,  in  this  action  of 
the  constructive  intelligence  of  the  child,  a  new  phenomenon  of  the  imitative 
force,  be  it  animal  or  intellectual. 

2  The  Abbate  Aporti,  in  his  Manual,  places  the  verbs  expressing  the  movements 
and  sounds  made  by  animals  after  their  names,  and  thus  makes  verbs  and  nouns 
alternate  closely  on  each  other.  I  should  place  nouns  and  verbs  as  separate 
degrees  of  instruction,  corresponding  to  separate  ages  or  orders  of  cognition.  At 
the  third  order,  I  should  make  the  child  repeat  the  names  of  the  things  learnt, 
and  after  these  the  adjectives,  and  then  the  verbs  signifying  the  actions  of  those 
things.  Here  I  would  end  the  second  table.  In  the  third,  I  would  go  a  step 
further,  and  so  on. 


206  ON.  THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

the  sounds  correctly.  At  first,  their  utterance  is  very  de- 
fective ;  they  stammer,  lisp,  cut  off  syllables,  strangle  the 
sounds,  etc.  ;  and,  before  they  are  allowed  to  read  or  write, 
they  should  be  made  to  pronounce  correctly,  and  to  over- 
come even  the  most  difficult  syllables. 

Some  excellent  promoters  of  infant  schools  in  Italy  have 
already  turned  their  attention  to  this  matter,  and  have  laid 
it  down  that  children  should  be  made  to  pronounce  ' '  clearly 
and  correctly  all  the  elementary  sounds  of  which  the  entire 
words  are  composed."  ^ 

I  believe  we  might  commence  this  exercise  with  advantage 
by  making  the  child  sound  the  musical  tones ^  taking  first  the 
natural  scale  and  then  the  intervals,  which,  if  his  ear  has 
been  accustomed  to  them  during  the  earlier  period  of 
infancy,  will  be  already  familiar  means. ^ 

This  exercise  should  be  followed  by,  or  alternated  with, 
the  pronunciation  of  the  voivel  sounds  articulated  in  speech. 

The  order  in  which  the  child  should  be  made  to  pronounce 
the  elementary  sounds  should  be  the  same,  I  think,  as  that 
in  which  he  will  afterwards  learn  to  read  and  write  them  ; 
beginning,  that  is,  with  the  vowels,  then  going  on  to  the 
compounds  of  vowels,  next  to  syllables  composed  of  each 
vowel  with  every  other  letter  of  the  alphabet,  then  to  syl- 
lables of  three  letters,  and  so  on.^ 

293.  When  the  child  has  learnt  to  pronounce  with  perfect 
correctness  all  the  letters,  syllables,  and  words,  he  may  pass 

1  See  II  Manuale  di  educazione  ed  ammaestramento  per  le  scuole  infantili. 
Cremona,  1833.    Parte  II.  c.  i. 

2  Tunes,  if  perfectly  simple,  are  easier  for  the  infant  than  single  notes,  and 
should,  therefore,  come  first,  but  be  soon  followed  by  the  single  notes,  which  are 
their  elements.    This  would  be  an  analysis  required  of  the  sense  of  hearing. 

3  I  must  bring  to  the  reader's  notice  in  this  place  a  singular  coincidence  of 
thought  between  Antonio  Rosmini,  Rafael  Lambruschini,  and  Vincenzo  Troia. 
The  first  laid  down  in  1839,  as  seen  above,  the  logical  principle  on  which  pronun- 
ciation, and  later  on,  reading,  should  be  taught  to  children,  while  contempora- 
neously, the  second  at  Florence,  the  third  at  Turin,  were  seeking  the  natural  method 
of  teaching  both,  and  came  to  entire  agreement  with  Rosmini,  as  may  be  seen 


LEARNING   TO    rilONOUNCE    AND   WRITE.  207 

on  to  the  intellectual  part  of  the  oral  exercise.  To  this 
belong  instruction  in  naming  objects,  as  we  pointed  out 
before,  and  also  the  analysis  of  sounds.  Aporti,  in  his 
Manual^  gives  a  good  example  of  this  (Part  II.  art.  v.).. 
except  that  it  seems  to  me  too  soon  to  speak  to  the  chilci 
of  diphthongs  or  triphthongs,  and  better  to  mention  only 
plurality  of  sounds.  It  is  simply  impossible  that  he  should 
understand  what  is  meant  by  diphthongs  and  triphthongs, 
while  the  idea  of  two  or  three  sounds  is  perfectly  easy 
to  him.^ 

Thus  it  seems  to  me  impossible  to  make  him  understand 
that  ia  in  ahhia  is  a  diphthong,  but  is  not  one  in  ubbi-a; 
and  Aporti's  solitary  example  from  ai  does  not  prove  it  to 
be  a  diphthong  rather  than  two  single  sounds  ;  for  it  may  be 
pronounced  ai,  at,  in  which  cases  it  is  a  diphthong,  or  a-^, 
separating  the  syllables,  when  it  is  no  longer  a  diphthong, 
but  simply  a  double  sound. 

in  the  admirable  spelling-book  which  they  gave  to  Italy,  both  instances  affording 
a  proof  that  the  earnest  and  patient  seekers  after  truth  will  find  her  meeting 
them  always  and  everywhere  the  same.  —  Fr.  Paoli. 

1  A  diphthong  consists  of  two  vowels  pronounced  at  once.  The  addition  made 
by  Lambruschini  to  this  definition,  viz.,  "that  the  accent  should  be  on  one  of  the 
two,  this  more  sustained  and  accentuated  vowel  drawing  into  itself  and  domi- 
nating the  other,  so  as  to  become,  as  it  were,  the  true  vowel,  whilst  the  other, 
absorbed  and  overcome,  plays  the  part  of  a  consonant"  (Guida  ilelV  Eihicatore, 
nos.  31-32,  fac.  218),  seems  to  me  not  essential  to  the  diphthong,  although,  probably, 
always  true  for  Italian.  In  fact,  in  almost  all  other  languages,  except  Italian, 
there  are  diphthongs  in  which  the  two  vowels  are  so  mingled  and  interpenetrated 
as  to  form  a  third  sound,  precisely  because  each  one  has  lost  its  own.  Greek 
scholars  observe  that  in  Greek  there  are  three  species  of  diphthong ;  in  some  the 
first  vowel  is  long  and  the  second  shortened,  as  in  a,  rj,  tjv,  w,  wu;  in  others  the 
vowels  are  both  short,  or  the  first  is  long,  according  to  the  derivation,  as  in 
au,  VI.  Finally,  there  are  others  in  which  both  vowels  are  short,  as  in  at,  et,  ev, 
01,  ou,  and  their  mingled  sounds  are  blended,  as  it  were,  in  a  third.  According 
to  the  granmiarians,  the  latter  alone  are  proper  diphthongs  ;  the  others  they  term 
improper.  I  will  not  say  that  the  vowel  which  is  shortened  in  the  improper 
diphthongs  plays  the  part  of  a  consonant;  but  it  is  pronounced  with  a  slighter 
movement  of  the  lips,  and  uttered  more  rapidly  in  opening  or  closing  them.  Thus 
in  ama  the  final  a,  which  is  the  more  slightly  pronounced,  escapes  through  the 
closing  of  the  lips,  while  in  ahhia  the  vowel  i,  which  is  the  shorter,  escapes 
through  openmg  them. 


208  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

Moreover,  if  we  are  to  base  education  on  a  strictly  logical 
method,  I  think  that  we  cannot  speak  of  consonants  as 
having  a  sound  apart  from  vowels.  They  are  but  the  be- 
ginnings or  endings  of  sound, ^  which  beginnings  and  end- 
ings cannot  exist  without  the  sound,  any  more  than  a  point 
without  a  line,  or  a  line  without  a  superficies,  or  a  superficies 
without  a  solid.  This  being  premised,  I  cannot  think  it 
right  that  the  teacher,  when  he  has  pronounced  the  syllable 
6^,  and  asks  the  child  how  many  sounds  he  has  heard,  should 
make  him  answer,  as  in  the  Manual  of  Aporti,  two.  He 
ought,  rather,  to  answer  one,  as  he  certainly  would  do  of 

1  The  vowel  is  formed  by  the  voice  coming  out  of  the  open  mouth  (by  open 
mouth  I  mean  the  separation  of  the  upper  and  under  lip,  so  that  the  air,  modified 
into  sound,  may  freely  pass  through).  But,  if  the  voice  is  thrown  out  in  the  act 
of  opening  the  mouth,  that  is,  before  it  is  quite  open,  and  is  sustained  through  the 
act  of  closing  it,  it  finds  an  impediment  either  at  the  beginning  or  the  end,  and  the 
modification  it  thus  receives  is  called  a  consonant.  Let  the  experiment  be  tried 
with  the  syllable  ba  or  ah,  and  it  will  appear  at  once  that  the  b  is  only  the  be- 
ginning or  the  end  of  the  sound  a,  which  finds  an  obstacle  either  in  issuing  from 
the  lips,  or  in  continuing  as  they  close.  What  is  true  of  the  action  of  the  lips  in 
the  labials  (6,  p,  m,  v,  f)  may  be  applied  equally  to  the  tongue  and  teeth  in  the 
dentals  {d,  I,  n,  t),  to  the  tongue  and  palate  in  the  palatals  (c,  g,  j,  s,  z),  to  the 
tongue  and  throat  in  the  gutturals  (c?i,  gh,  h,  k,  g).  We  must,  however,  distinguish 
from  the  consonants  the  nasal  intonation  and  the  aspirates,  which  are  slight 
sounds,  not  distinctly  vocalized,  but  supplementing  the  vowels  in  facilitating  the 
pronunciation  of  the  consonants.  Whenever  several  consonants  are  joined  in  a 
syllable,  as,  when  the  first  consonant  is  an  s,  or  when  the  second  is  a  j9  or  an  I, 
there  is  always  an  aspirate  or  a  nasal  intonation  to  enable  them  to  be  pronounced. 
For  example,  in  sci,*  sdo,  sfa,  sgo,  etc.,  and  in  all  others  where  s  is  the  first  conso- 
nant, we  have  the  sibilant  aspirate,  which  is  necessary  for  the  pronunciation  of 
these  united  consonants.  If  m  enters  into  the  syllable,  as  in  smo,  etc.,  besides  the 
sibilant,  we  have  a  certain  degree  of  nasal  sound  before  the  m.  In  the  syllables 
2)ra,  era,  etc.,  there  is  a  harsh  aspirate  before  the  r,  which  makes  the  sound  tremu- 
lous. In  cla,  pli,  there  is  a  soft  aspirate  before  the  /,  which  makes  the  sound  fiow 
more  gently.  The  double  consonants,  on  the  other  hand,  are  not  given  by  aspirates 
or  nasal  intonation,  but  simply  by  a  slight  pause  interposed  between  them.  These 
are  the  only  instances  in  the  Italian  language  of  the  accumulation  of  consonants. 
The  word  mnemonica,  and  some  others  of  foreign  origin,  are  pronounced  with  the 
nasal  intonation  preceding  the  letter  m.  An  exception  must  be  made  for  words 
where  the  r  is  followed  by  an  I,  as  in  Carlo,  and  in  which  the  two  consonants  never 
form  one  syllable,  although  the  I  is  the  second  continuous  consonant. 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  all  those  examples  are  based  on  Italian  pronunciation,  and  the 
reader  should  supply  parallel  ones  from  English  syllables.  —  Translator. 


VOCAL   SOUNDS.  209 

himself,  since  that  syllable  is  only  a  single  sound.  He 
should,  indeed,  when  he  has  given  that  answer,  be  made  to 
pronounce  first  *,  and  then  &^,  and  be  asked  if  those  are  the 
same  sound.  He  will,  of  course,  answer  that  hi  is  a  different 
sound  from  i.  and  must  then  be  asked  where  the  difference 
lies,  at  the  beginning  or  at  the  end  of  the  sound.  Answer^ 
At  the  beginning.  And  the  sound  ih^  is  that  the  same  as  i 
or  hi?  No,  it  is  different.  But  where  is  it  different  from  i? 
At  the  beginning  or  the  end?  At  the  end.  And  from  hi? 
At  the  beginning.  And  this  exercise  should  be  continued 
through  all  the  syllables.  The  child  should  be  exercised  in 
the  decomposition  of  words  into  their  sounds,  i,  e.,  their 
syllables,  and  in  recognizing  and  noting  their  differences.^ 
This  oral  exercise  will  be  a  most  useful  preparation  for  read- 
ing, which  will  be  taught  next,  and  it  will  greatly  assist  the 
child  in  intellectual  study. ^ 

294.  It  is  well  also  at  this  age  to  make  him  number  like 
things,  so  that,  in  rising  through  the  numerical  scale,  he  may 
be  led  on  to  rise  through  the  various  orders  of  cognition. 
This  implies  a  more  rapid  advance  than  would  seem  due 
from  the  fact  we  have  previously  observed,  that  each  num- 
ber belongs  to  a  different  order  of  cognition.    But  the  reason 

*  The  noting  of  differences  belongs  to  the  next  order  of  reflections;  but  this 
exercise  will  help  the  child  admirably  to  rise  in  the  intellectual  scale,  as  also  will 
arithmetical  exercises. 

2  In  teaching  to  read,  the  gradual  steps  must  be  as  follows: 

1.  Show  how  the  vowels  are  written. 

2.  Show  how  two,  three,  or  more  vowels  joined  together  are  written. 

3.  Go  on  to  the  syllables  having  one  consonant  only,  such  as  ha,  he,  hi,  ho,  hu, 
making  the  child  observe  how  these  five  sounds  are  each  modified  at  the  beginning 
by  the  same  check  to  the  voice,  and  then  makuig  him  understand  that  this  modifi- 
cation may  be  indicated  by  a  sign  placed  before  each.  Let  the  sign,  for  example, 
be  a  stop,  .a,  .e.  A,  .o,  .u;  make  him  pronounce  ha,  he,  hi,  ho,  hu,  and  then  es- 
tablish that  h  is  the  figure  by  which  that  modification  is  signified. 

The  same  must  be  done  with  the  syllables  ah,  eh,  ih,  oh,  uh;  hah,  heh,  hih,  hoh, 
huh,  and  so  on  with  every  consonant,  letter  by  letter.  When  we  come  to  the 
joining  of  several  consonants,  the  child  niust  learn  the  use  of  tlio  asjnrates  and 
the  nasal  tone.    But  more  will  be  said  in  its  proper  place  on  the  subject  of  reading. 


210  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

of  this  rapidity  is  found  in  the  extremely  simple  formula  by 
which  he  quickly  learns  to  pass  from  one  number  to  another. 
This  formula  consists  in  always  adding  a  unit  to  the  things 
already  numbered.  He  repeats  the  same  operation,  signify- 
ing it  by  a  new  number.  When  he  says  one  and  one  is 
two,  two  and  one  is  three,  three  and  one  is  four,  and  so 
on,  he  has  not  at  all  the  distinct  cognition  of  two,  three,  etc., 
which  he  names  and  distinguishes  by  this  repeated  operation  ; 
but,  without  attending  to  the  sum  accumulated,  he  adds  to  it 
a  unit  and  gives  it  another  name.  Even  so,  this  is  a  useful 
exercise  for  the  child,  and  we  may,  at  first,  give  him  for  the 
purpose  two  similar  objects,  balls  or  the  like,  then  three, 
then  four,  etc.,  letting  him  play  with  them  till  he  has  got 
together  the  number  we  want  him  to  learn.  Other  exercises 
of  the  kind  are  mentioned  in  the  Manual  for  Infant  Schools  ^ 
(Part  II.  art.  V.) 

Section  3.  —  Teaching  by  Pictures. 

295.  The  child  may  also  be  taught  at  this  age  by  pictures, 
which  he  is  fond  of  and  takes  great  delight  in.^  Amongst 
other  advantages  to  be  derived  from  their  use  might  be 
that  of  preparing  him  for  the  reading  and  writing  lessons, 
soon  to  follow.  The  earliest  mode  of  writing  seems  to  have 
been  pictorial ;  this  was  afterwards  shortened  into  hiero- 
glyphics ;  writing  by  letters  was  probably  invented  latest 
of  all. 

It  has  already  been  suggested  that  the  same  process 
should  be  applied  to  children ;  but  the  difficulty  is  to  find 
pictorial  images  which  would  admit  of  being  converted  into 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet.     The  difficulty  is  greater  still, 

1  Note  of  Translator.  I  need  not  point  out  to  the  reader  that  this  method  of 
teaching  arithmetic  is  practically  the  same  as  FroeheVs,  and  is  that  adopted  in  the 
ordinary  infant  schools  in  England  and  elsewhere. 

2  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure  mentions  a  child  of  11  months  old,  who  could  recog- 
nize a  dog  in  an  engraving,  and  at  a  year  old  could  be  amused  by  looking  at 
pictures.  —  L.  III.  c.  v. 


MORAL   EDUCATION.  211 

if  we  insist  that  the  name  of  the  thing  pictured  should  con- 
tain in  its  first  syllable  the  letter  itself,  which  yet  is  an 
immense  help  to  children  in  learning  to  read.  I  have,  how- 
ever, contrived  such  an  alphabet  for  the  use  of  the  schools 
of  the  Brethren  of  Charity,  and  the  Sisters  of  Providence, 
to  which  I  must  refer  the  reader.^ 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  MORAL   EDUCATION  CORRESPONDING   TO  THE   THIRD  PERIOD. 

ARTICLE  I. 

OF   THE    OBJECTIVE    PRINCIPLE    AND    THE    SUBJECTIVE    PRINCIPLE    ON  WHICH 
THE  CHILD  ACTS  AT  THIS  PERIOD. 

296.  The  morality  of  children  has  been  very  differently 
estimated.  People,  in  general,  believe  they  have  none. 
Certain  sagacious  observers  discover  that  there  is  a  morality 
in  childhood,  but  are  divided  in  their  judgment  of  it,  some 
asserting  that  it  is  good,  and  wholly  good ;  others  that  it 
is  bad,  and  wholly  bad. 

The  reason  why  most  people  find  no  morality  in  children 

1  The  Art  of  Teaching  to  Read.  Such  is  the  title  of  a  little  book  the  author 
intended  to  publish,  but  of  which  he  scarcely  completed  the  spelling-tables  al- 
luded to  in  the  note  I  appended  to  No.  292.  In  other  portions  of  the  present  work, 
he  proposes  the  compilation  of  similar  primers  for  elementary  education,  and 
in  conversation  he  frequently  mentioned  the  same  wish.  Amongst  his  papers 
I  found  a  note  of  the  following  subjects  : 

1.  A  vocabulary  showing  the  proper  use  of  words. 

2.  A  book  of  moral  sentences  suited  to  various  ages. 

3.  A  book  of  poetry  for  various  ages. 

4.  A  picture  book. 

5.  A  selection  of  dramatic  representations. 

6.  A  selection  of  musical  pieces  suited  to  infant  intelligence  and  set  to 
childish  words. 

7.  A  selection  of  words,  phrases,  construction  of  sentences,  divided  according 
to  the  child's  grade  of  knowledge. 

8.  Method  of  reading  and  writing. 

9.  Method  of  graduated  arithmetic. 

10.  A  book  teaching  how  to  develop  the  idea  of  God  in  the  child's  mind,  and 
to  bring  back  to  it  all  other  ideas  throughout  the  various  stages  of  childhood,  — 
Fr.  Paoh. 


212  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

is  because  they  look  for  the  morality  of  adults.  We  have 
said  enough  previously  to  demonstrate  that  the  child  has  a 
morality  of  his  own.  That,  nevertheless,  he  occasionally 
shows  vestiges  of  a  principle  of  error  and  moral  disorder, 
is  a  fact  recognized  by  the  most  of  those  who  have  investi- 
gated human  nature,  unbiassed  by  preconceived  systems ; 
and  is,  moreover,  one  of  the  most  profound  and  marvellous 
dogmas  of  Christianity. 

We  reserve  a  few  more  words  on  this  subject  till  we  come 
to  the  time  when  the  child  begins  to  act  from  choice ;  up  to 
that  time  he  simply  obeys  the  spontaneous  impulse  arising 
from  the  various  degrees  of  his  benevolence,  which  are 
determined  solely  by  external  reasons.^ 

We  shall,  therefore,  confine  ourselves  at  present  to  observ- 
ing the  child's  morality  as  it  is  in  itself,  without  any  regard 
to  what  it  may  contain  of  original  evil. 

Lovers  of  children,  who  have  observed  them  attentively, 
think  they  have  perceived  that  their  morality  is  very  incon- 
stant, and  shows  no  fixed  principle.  Here  is  the  judgment 
of  a  mother,  who  yet  would  have  wished  to  say  everything 
that  was  good  of  creatures  so  dear  as  these  little  children  : 

"Nothing,  certainly,  can  be  more  irregular  and  fickle  than  a 
child's  moral  feeling  at  three  years  of  age.     In  fact,  the  predomi- 

1  I  conjecture  that  there  exists  from  the  first,  in  the  depths  of  the  child's  soul, 
a  hidden  mine,  as  it  were,  of  benevolence  and  of  malevolence  more  or  less  con- 
siderable. This  portion  of  benevolence,  concreated  in  men,  to  which,  perhaps.  Job 
alluded  when  he  said  that  compassion  was  born  with  him  {quia  ah  infantia  mea 
crevit  mecum  miseratio :  et  de  utero  matris  mess  egressa  est  inecum,  xxxi.  18),*  is  that 
which  marks  and  inspires  their  conduct  when  occasions  arise,  and  makes  one 
man  genial,  another  narrow  and  cold-hearted.  But  even  geniality  and  benevo- 
lence are  of  different  kinds,  and  are  originated  more  or  less  by  corporeal  sensations. 
There  is  a  highest  kind  which  comes  from  the  light  of  truth.  It  seems  to  me  per- 
fectly credible  that,  among  the  original  varieties  of  mankind,  there  should  be  one 
kmd  of  a  deeper  and  nobler  nature,  consisting  in  the  greater  power  of  intuition 
of  mental  being.  Whosoever  has  the  largest,  clearest  intuition  of  this,  has  a 
greater  treasure  of  the  noblesi  love  in  his  heart,  which,  to  my  thinking,  is  the 
happiest  disposition  towards  virtue. 

*  This  is  the  Vulgate  version :  that  of  the  English  Bible  is  quite  different.  —  Translator's  note. 


CHILD   MORALITY.  213 

nating  elements  in  the  child's  mind  rarely  allow  of  his  forming 
a  judgment  in  cold  blood.  Always  carried  away  by  the  influence 
of  some  emotion,  prejudiced  by  himself  or  by  those  whom  he 
loves,  he  is  at  one  moment  utterly  selfish,  and  then  suddenly 
seems  to  throw  his  whole  personality  into  that  of  another,  with- 
out, however,  being  more  just  when  thus  self-devoted."  ^ 

297.  In  fact,  certain  acts  of  the  child  at  this  age  would 
seem  to  prove  his  extreme  selfishness,  and  others  his 
extreme  disinterestedness.  Whence  this  apparent  contra- 
diction ? 

To  find  the  answer,  we  must  penetrate  into  a  mystery 
of  the  infant  mind,  which  I  know  not  if  any  one  has  yet 
fathomed.  The  way  by  which  I  would  lead  the  reader  into 
it  is  as  follows  : 

The  child  feels  his  self^  but  has  no  idea^  no  knowledge 
of  it ;  he  cannot  have  the  intellectual  perception  of  himself 
till  he  has  attained  a  higher  grade  of  cognition.  I  will  give 
the  proof  of  this  in  the  next  section,  and,  in  the  mean  while, 
must  beg  the  reader  to  accept  it  as  a  postulate.^ 

Now,  during  the  whole  time  previous  to  the  child's  becom- 
ing capable  of  the  intellectual  perception  of  himself,  he 
is  unable,  voluntarily^  to  refer  good  or  evil  to  his  known 
SELF,  because  this  known  self  does  not  yet  exist  for  him. 
This  is  the  reason  of  his  completely  disinterested  actions. 
His  action  is  as  yet  entirely  objective ;  the  subjective  does 
not  yet  exist  for  his  intellect  and  his  will. 

298.  But,  then,  why  do  so  many  of  his  other  actions 
appear  so  full  of  selfishness? 

In   the   first   place,    simultaneously  with  the  intellectual 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  vi. 

2  I  am  aware  that  this  will  appear  to  many  a  paradox  of  the  first  magnitude. 
But,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  has  this  appearance  at  first  sight,  the  sagacious 
and  kindly  reader  will  doubt  the  reality  of  the  appearance,  giving  me  credit  for 
not  departing  from  what  has  the  greatest  semblance  of  truth,  except  for  the 
gravest  reasons  and  after  the  most  careful  examination. 


214  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

activity,  but  on  a  lower  plane,  there  is  the  animal  activity 
at  work  in  the  child,  and  the  latter  has  all  the  appearance 
of  egoism,  though  the  term  ^  cannot  properly  be  applied  to 
it.  For,  being  derived  from  ego^  it  signifies  the  self-love 
of  a  subject  knowing  itself ;  the  ego  (I)  being  precisely  the 
self -knowing  subject.^ 

In  the  second  place,  although  the  child  does  not  perceive 
himself,  he  yet  feels  and  perceives  mentally  both  pain  and 
pleasure ;  but,  knowing  no  subject  to  which  he  can  refer 
these,  he  attributes  them  to  the  objects  which  occasion  them, 
and  associates  them  so  closely  with  the  perception  and 
image  of  the  latter,  that  to  him  they  become  one  and  the 
same  thing.  .  What  he  wills ^  then,  are  the  objects ;  his 
action  is  always  objective  ;  but  these  objects  are  composed 
for  him  of  pleasures  and  pains,  as  constituent  elements, 
which  would,  in  fact,  be  his  own,  if  he  only  knew  it.  We 
must,  therefore,  distinguish  the  pleasures  and  pains  per- 
ceived in  themselves,  apart  from  the  subject,  and  imagined 
to  be  in  the  object,  from  the  pleasures  and  pains  referred 
to  the  subject.  Action,  in  so  far  as  it  is  moral,  takes  its 
character  from  the  conception  and  intention  of  the  agent. 
Therefore,  when  the  child  conceives  the  pleasures  and  pains 
he  feels  to  be  in  the  objects  perceived,  he  acts  in  intention 
on  an  objective  principle  ;  but  the  appearance  of  his  action 
is  wholly  subjective^  because  he  is,  in  fact,  always  seeking 
the  objects  which  give  him  pleasure  and  avoiding  those 
which  give  him  pain.  It  is  we  who  attribute  this  subjective 
character  to  the  child's  action ;  for  it  is  we  who  refer  it 
to  the  child  subject,  which  the  child  himself  does  not.  We 
treat  the  child's  actions  as  we  do  our  own,  and  we  refer 
the  latter  to  ourselves,  because  we  have  had  and  always 

1  In  my  History  of  Moral  Systems  I  have  shown  that  to  none  of  the  bhnd 
impulses  can  the  term  interested  or  disinterested  be  applied.  —  Cap.  IV.,  art.  iv. 
Philosophy  of  Morals,  v.  i. 

3  See  the  definition  and  analysis  6i  the  Ego  in  the  Anthropology,  nos.  805-811, 


DISCIPLINE   AT   THIS   STAGE.  215 

continue  to  have  the  perception  of  ourselves.  Hence,  by 
analogy,  we  apply  to  the  child's  conduct  the  motives  which 
guide  the  adult,  and  this  is  the  common  error,  the  source 
of  the  endless  contradictions  which  we  seem  to  discover 
in  the  actions  of  children. 

ARTICLE    II. 

ON    RESISTANCE,     CONSIDERED    IN    RELATION    TO    THE    CHILD    IN    THE 
FOURTH    PERIOD. 

299.  What  has  been  already  said  with  reference  to  the 
amount  and  kind  of  resistance  which  should  be  offered  to 
the  child  in  the  previous  period  (227  and  folk)  must  be 
applied  in  the  present  and  the  following  periods. 

The  objects  which  we  should  aim  at,  and  which  should 
regulate  our  resistance  to  the  child,  and  the  degree  of 
severity  we  exercise  towards  him,  are :  To  obtain  from  him 
a  moderate  exercise  of  patience  ;  to  rectify  his  conceptions  ; 
to  do  away  with  malevolent  feelings  ;  to  remove  limits  from 
his  benevolent  ones. 

As  he  grows  older,  he  can  bear  a  more  rigid  discipline. 
The  principle  being  once  laid  down,  that,  in  our  treatment 
of  him,  we  must  apply  his  moral  principles,  and  not  our  own, 
which  he  cannot  understand,  it  follows  that,  with  the  growth 
of  his  principles,  we  gain  more  and  more  means  of  influ- 
ence over  him,  and  may  justly  exact  more  from  him  than 
at  first. 

I  say  that  we  may  exact  more  from  him  than  at  firsts 
because  all  we  can  expect  from  him  is,  that  he  should  con- 
form to  his  own  principles,  and  we  can  demand  from  him 
only  his  own  morality,  not  ours  ;  it  is  only  when  he  departs 
from  that,  that  we  have  the  right  and  the  duty  to  recall  him 
to  it,  and  to  attach  pain  to  all  those  actions  which  are  con- 
trary to  the  morality  he  recognizes,  in  order  that  his  instinc- 
tive fear  of  pain  may  help  him  to  avoid  those  actions  which 
seduce  him  by  their  apparent  pleasantness. 


216  ON    THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

This  increase  of  resistance  is  the  more  necessary  that  the 
child  develops,  as  he  grows  older,  various  feelings  of  ill-will 
and  restiveness,  which  a  wise  vigilance  should  discern  and 
quench  the  moment  they  appear,  lest  they  should  take  root 
and  spread. 

AUTICLE    III. 

DIVINE    WORSHIP. 

300.  The  same  form  of  worship  should  be  carried  on  at 
this  age  as  was  indicated  in  the  preceding  sections  (245- 
248).  But  when  God  has  been  named  to  the  child,  and 
he  has  been  taught  to  know  Him,  as  the  most  loveable 
of  beings,  the  highest  good,  it  will  be  time  to  make  Him 
known  as  God-Man,^  and  Mary  as  his  mother,  and  to  call 
upon  their  names,  as  often  as  possible,  for  help  in  every 
need,  for  strength  in  every  action,  for  thanksgiving  in  every 
joy.  It  is  incredible  how  this  exercise  will  tend  to  perfect 
the  idea  of  God  in  the  child's  mind,  to  awaken  religious 
feelings  in  his  heart,  and  to  strengthen  him  in  all  virtuous 
dispositions  and  habits. 

Finally,  we  must  not  neglect  to  obtain  for  him  those 
graces  of  which  we  have  spoken  at  the  period  of  infancy. 

1  Note  of  Translator.  —  The  reader  is  requested  here  to  bear  in  mind  the 
Translator's  protest  as  regards  religious  dogmas  and  practices,  in  the  note  to 
No.  137, 


SECTION    V. 

THE    COGNITIONS    OF    THE    FOURTH    ORDER    AND    THE 
CORRESPONDING    EDUCATION. 

CHAPTER    I. 

COGNITIONS    OF    THE    FOURTH    ORDER. 

ARTICLE    I. 
CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  FOURTH  ORDER. 

301.  All  the  processes  peculiar  to  the  preceding  stages 
of  development  are  continued  in  this,  repeating  themselves, 
becoming  more  complex,  producing  new  concepts  in  the 
understanding  and  new  affections  of  the  will.  It  is  enough 
to  draw  attention  to  this  fact,  which  holds  good  for  each 
of  the  succeeding  stages,  the  human  mind  throughout  life 
carrying  on,  from  one  stage  of  development  to  the  other, 
all  that  it  had  gained  in  the  previous  stages. 

Passing  onwards,  then,  without  further  comment,  to  the 
cognitions  of  the  fourth  order,  let  us  inquire  what  they 
are. 

It  would  take  us  too  long  to  make  a  complete  classifica- 
tion of  them.  We  have  shown  the  method  which  should 
be  followed  where  we  gave  the  classification  of  the  cog- 
nitions of  the  third  order  (nos.  253-255).  It  will  suffice  for 
our  purpose  to  show  that  all  the  cognitions  of  the  fourth 
order  may  be  reduced  to  two  large  classes. 

Class  I. — Those  that  have  for  their  object  the  relations 
between  the  cognitions  of  the  third  order. 

Class  II.  — Those  that  have  for  their  object  the  relations 
between  the  cognitions  of  the  third  and  those  of  the  pre- 
ceding orders. 


218  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

It  is  evident  from  what  has  been  already  said,  what  an 
immensely  ramified  classification  would  result  from  an  at- 
tempt to  subdivide  these  two  great  classes.^  And  yet  this 
fourth  order  of  thought  is  as  nothing  compared  to  those 
much  higher  orders  which  are  reached  by  the  adult,  and 
especially  by  learned  men. 

ARTICLE    II. 

MENTAL  PROCESSES  IN  THE  FORMATION  OF  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  FOURTH 
ORDER. 

Section  1.— Analytic  Judgments. 

302.  As  synthesis  is  the  method  proper  to  the  mind  in 
possession  of  the  third  order  of  cognitions,  so  analysis  is 
the  method  proper  to  it  when  it  has  reached  those  of  the 
fourth  order,  in  accordance  with  the  law  already  laid  down, 
that  to  all  the  uneven  numbers  in  the  orders  of  cognition 
belong  synthetic  judgments,  and  to  all  the  even  ones  ana- 
lytic judgments. 

Let  us  begin  by  noting  the  difference  between  analytic 
judgments  of  the  second  order  and  those  of  the  fourth. 

The  analytic  judgments  of  the  second  order  are  pure 
abstractions;  those  of  the  fourth  are  elementary  decomposi- 
tions. The  difference  between  these  two  modes  of  analytic 
judgment  is  immense,  and  it  consists  in  this  : 

In  abstraction  the  mind  attends  to  one  part  only  of  its 
conception  and  neglects  the  remainder.  Thus,  having  formed 
the  conception  of  a  body,  I  may  confine  my  abstraction  to 
its  color,  and  make  of  the  latter  an  abstract  existence. 

1  It  is  evident  that  the  first  of  these  classes  must  have  the  same  number  of  sub- 
divisions as  the  cognitions  of  the  third  order  (a  subdivision  which  has  seven 
branches,  as  shown  in  no.  254),  and  accord  with  tlie  various  modes  in  which  those 
seven  branches  are  connected  together.  Tlie  second  class  is  likewise  subdivided 
into  the  seven  classes  of  cognitions  of  the  third  order,  and  the  relations  of  each 
with  the  classes  of  the  orders  below.  This  indication  should  be  enough  to  make 
the  intelligent  reader  understand  how  iimumerable  and  varied  are  the  cognitions 
which  the  human  mind  succeeds  in  forming,  so  as  to  become  incomprehensible 
even  to  itself. 


ABSTRACTION    AND   DECOMPOSITION.  219 

In  elementary  decomposition^  on  the  other  hand,  the  mind 
is  fixed  on  tlie  whole  of  the  object  conceived,  and  divides  it 
into  parts.  Thus,  after  having  judged  a  certain  object  to 
be  a  colored  body,  I  can  further  divide  substance  from 
accident  in  tlie  object,  and  say,  this  object  is  composed 
of  two  parts,  substance  and  the  accident,  color. 

In  the  above  exampk  of  abstraction^  my  mind  dwelt  on 
the  color,  and  nothing  more ;  but,  when  I  judged  a  given 
object  to  be  a  colored  body  (a  synthesis  of  the  third  grade) , 
I  must  have  thought  at  the  same  time  of  the  abstract  color 
and  the  subsisting  object  in  which  I  placed  it.  So,  when  I 
now  say  that  the  object  has  two  parts,  I  fix  my  attention 
equally  on  the  substance  and  the  accident,  and,  moreover, 
recognize  their  relation. 

The  study  of  this  relation  becomes  afterwards  an  inex- 
haustible source  of  knowledge,  which  goes  on  increasing 
through  the  whole  of  life. 

Until  I  had  gained  the  faculty  of  perceiving  individually 
subsisting  entities  (first  order),  I  could  not  compare  them, 
nor  could  I  make  such  a  comparison  when  I  abstracted 
from  them  their  qualities  (second  order)  ;  for  my  mind 
dwelt  on  the  latter,  abstracted  and  divided  from  the  indi- 
vidual entities,  and  the  entities  themselves  escaped  me. 
By  putting  together  again  the  entities  and  their  abstracted 
qualities  (third  order) ,  I  once  more  brought  the  wliole  entity 
before  me.  But  my  mind  having  reached  this  stage,  and 
having  present  to  it  both  the  abstract  qualities  and  the 
entities  themselves,  I  am  able  to  confront  them  with  each 
other,  and  to  recognize  by  comparison  their  correlativity. 

303.  This  most  fertile  process  of  comparison  between 
things  (a  process  which  pours  a  flood  of  light  into  the 
mind),  can  begin  only  with  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions.^ 

1  In  abstraction  (second  order),  there  is  something  resembling  comparisons. 
But,  if  we  look  closer  into  it,  we  find  that  it  is  not  a  comparison  of  the  things 


220  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD. 

There  is  another  reason  why  comparison  cannot  be  made 
earlier,  viz. :  that  the  Imnian  mind  does  not  recognize  duality 
till  it  has  reached  the  third  order  (nos.   268,  269). 

In  the  fourth  order,  not  only  do  we  distinguish,  through 
comparison^  between  substance  and  accident,  between  being 
and  the  mode  of  being  in  the  thing  itself,  but  we  begin  to 
analyze  also  the  degree  in  which  the  entity  participates  in 
the  predicate  we  attribute  to  it ;  so  that,  for  example,  we 
can  distinguish  the  degree  in  which  two  bodies  participate 
in  the  red  color,  or  any  other  qualities  which  can  be  predi- 
cated^ of  them. 

The  child,  then,  at  this  period,  begins  not  only  to  ana- 
lyze entity,  but  also  its  modes,  that  which  can  be  predi- 
cated of  it. 

Section  2.  —  Synthetic  Judgments. 

304.  Just  as  in  the  preceding  (third)  order  of  cognitions 
the  process  of  analysis  went  on,  it  is  evident  that  synthesis, 
for  which  it  has  prepared  the  material,  will  take  place  in 
the  present  order. 

One  of  the  products  of  the  analysis  of  the  third  order  was 
the  abstract  conception  of  action.  This  conception  of  action, 
thus  abstracted,  is  applied  to  entities  and  predicated  of  them, 
and  thus  synthetic  judgments  are  formed. 

The  synthesis  thus  formed  is  the  same  for  real  objects 
(as,  for  instance,  when,  at  the  mere  sight  of  the  fire,  I  attrib- 
ute to  it  the  action  of  heating,  as  for  purely  ideal  objects)  ; 
as,  for  instance,  if  I  should  imagine  a  thing  and  attribute 

themselves,  which  are  left  aside,  but  of  the  qualities  abstracted  from  them  ;  and 
these  can  be  abstracted  from  any  one  thing  without  comparing  it  with  another, 
since  the  attention  is  limited  to  a  quality  of  the  thing,  and  does  not  extend  to  the 
whole  thing.  The  description  given  in  the  Neiu  Essay  (nos.  180  and  foil.)  of  the 
mental  process  of  comparison  shows  the  necessity  of  having,  1.  the  quality  or 
abstract  entity  in  the  mind  ;  2.  the  perception  of  two  subjects  ;  3.  the  comparison 
of  both  with  the  abstract  quality. 

1  Predicate  means  to  me  that  which  is  predicated  of  anything.  I  do  not  use 
the  word  in  the  Aristotelian  sense. 


HYPOTHETICAL   REASONING.  221 

to  it  the  heating  property.  This  shows  how  immensely  the 
kind  of  synthesis  formed  at  this  period  extends  the  power 
of  the  intellectual  imagination  (ideation),  making  it  possible 
for  the  mind  to  attribute  to  the  things  it  has  created  for 
itself  activities  which  either  are  not  included  in  the  concep- 
tion of  them,  or,  if  they  are  included,  can  yet  be  distin- 
guished from  them  in  their  ideal  existence. 

This  observation  is  important,  as  explaining  the  sudden 
development  of  the  child's  imagination  at  three  years  old. 

Section  3.  —  Hypothetical  Ratiocination. 

305.  At  this  age  the  mind  appears  first  to  conceive  hypo- 
thetical ratiocination,  or,  at  least,  the  major  premiss  of  it. 

The  child  has  already  in  the  preceding  period  become 
acquainted  with  the  number  two  (nos.  263  and  foil.).  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  he  could  at  that  age  recognize  the 
relation  expressed  in  the  major  premiss  of  the  hypothetical 
syllogism;  i.  e.,  that  the  existence  of  one  thing  is  the  con- 
dition of  the  existence  of  another,  and  all  the  more  easily 
that,  in  feeling,  the  two  things  are  already  bound  together 
and  conditioned  by  the  unitive  force  of  the  subject.  Hence, 
the  mind  has  only  to  analyze,  as  it  were,  its  own  feeling, 
in  order  to  know  both  the  conditioning  and  conditioned  ele- 
ments of  it,^  an  analysis,  however,  which  it  cannot  perform 
with  certainty  before  having  reached  the  fourth  order  of 
cognitions ;  for  the  mind  must :  1st,  perceive  the  feeling ; 
2d,  distinguish  the  two  things  joined  together  (3d  order)  ; 

1  «Two  events  have  followed  each  other  immediately  on  several  occasions. 
The  first  soon  excites  in  the  child  the  expectation  of  the  second,  and,  hence,  there 
arises  for  him  an  abundant  source  of  pains  and  pleasures  of  which  we  are,  for 
him,  the  authors.  1  have  already  said  that  the  child  is  slowly  enlightened  by  the 
lessons  of  experience  in  early  infancy,  because  it  is  only  very  tardily  that  he  draws 
from  the  facts  he  knows  a  general  consequence  which  shall  serve  him  as  a  rule  of 
action  in  new  cases.  This  would  be  an  act  of  judgment  above  his  capacity,  and 
he  has  simply  the  recollection  of  the  association  of  the  impressions  which  have 
followed  each  other."  —  IVIad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  iii. 


222  ON   THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

3d,  observe  that,  given  the  one,  the  other  must  be  there 
also ;  take  away  the.  one,  the  other  must  go ;  and  not  till  it 
has  gone  through  all  these  stages  can  it  pronounce  :  If  such 
a  thing  is  (or  happens,  or  is  done),  then  the  other  is,  etc., 
which  is  the  major  premiss  of  the  hypothetical   syllogism. 

306.  The  hypothetical  syllogism  gives  an  immense  de- 
velopment to  voluntary  activity  ;  for  it  is  only  when  the  mind 
begins  to  form  hypotheses  that  conditional,  as  distinct  from 
absolute  volitions,  can  arise  ;  and  the  same  applies  to  whims 
of  all  kinds.  Before  this  period  the  child  has  no  whims  ;  he 
wills  simply,  and,  therefore,  strongly. 

Although  this  conditioning  of  volitions  lessens  their  force, 
and  is  so  far  a  loss  of  energy,  we  find  a  compensation  in 
their  greater  regularity  ;  in  their  being  guided  by  a  stronger 
light  of  reason.  They  begin  to  be  connected  and  subordi- 
nated, —  an  immense  gain  to  moral  development. 

ARTICLE    III. 

OBJECTS  OF  THE  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  FOURTH  ORDER. 

Section  1.  — Reality  and  Ideality. 
^.—Differences. 

307.  In  the  preceding  period  the  child  has  learned  to 
know  the  dual  number. 

It  is  necessary  to  know  one  and  two  objects,  before  we 
can  compare  them  with  each  other  and  find  their  diffei^ences. 
As  this  process  of  comparison  begins  at  the  fourth  order, 
it  is  only  at  this  period  that  we  can  obtain  the  mental  pro- 
duct of  the  differences  of  things. 

We  have  before  said  enough  to  show  how  much  easier 
it  is  to  know  the  similarities  of  things  than  their  differences. 
But  those  who  have  followed  up  to  this  point  the  march  of 
the  child's  intellectual  development,  and  its  products,  as 
described  by  us,  must  have  gained  by  their  own  reflection 
a  yet  stronger  conviction  of  this  important  truth,  so  con- 


DIFFERENCE   DISCOVERED.  223 

trary  to  the  common  prejudice  of  philosophers,  who  assume 
that  likeness  and  unlikeness  are  found  by  the  same  mental 
process. 

This  prejudice  arises  from  not  considering  that  what  is 
like  in  several  objects  may  be  apprehended  and  noted  by 
the  mind  in  two  ways,  either  as  a  simple  quality  (more 
generally  a  predicable  one) ,  or  as  a  quality  which  we  know 
to  exist  in  several  objects,  making  them  alike. ^ 

Now,  to  know  likeness  in  this  second  way,  it  is  assuredly 
necessary  to  go  through  the  same  process  by  which  we  recog- 
nize difference;  but  the  case  is  quite  different  if  we  gain  our 
knowledge  in  the  first  way.  This  is  of  the  simplest  kind, 
and  belongs  to ,  the  second  order  of  cognitions  ;  for  it  con- 
sists in  fixing  our  intellectual  attention  on  a  single  quality 
of  one  or  more  things,  taking  no  he'ed  of  their  other  parts 
or  of  their  number.  In  this  operation,  we  only  repeat  the 
same  act  of  attention  to  the  identical  quality  in  each  one 
of  the  objects  passing  before  the  eyes,  without  in  the  least 
attending  to  their  number  or  comparing  them  together. 

Differences^  on  the  contrary,  can  be  discerned  only  by 
comparing  various  things  and  noting  what  it  is  in  which 
they  all  differ. 

J5.  — Numbers. 

308.  The  number  three  belongs  to  this  order,  the  child 
having  in  the  previous  one  learned  to  know  distinctly  the 
number  two. 

He  arrived  at  this  by  adding  one  to  one,  an  operation 
which  he  can  always  repeat,  and  which  leads  him  to  numer- 
ation, without,  however,  attaining  a  distinct  knowledge  of 
the  higher  numbers,  which  remain  vague  in  his  mind.  In 
the  same  manner,  he  can  now  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of 

1  strictly  speaking,  the  latter  is  the  only  way  by  which  we  arrive  at  knowing 
likeness-;  but  it  is  commonly  believed  that  we  know  it  so  soon  as  we  know  the 
element  which  is  like.  It  is  not  observed  that  we  caimot  know  this  till  we  know 
that  it  is  like,  i.  e.,  that  it  exists  alike  in  two  or  more  objects. 


224  ON   THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OP  METHOD. 

three^by  adding  one  to  two,  or  two  to  one,  and  the  latter 
operation,  once  learned,  becomes  a  general  formula  by  which 
he  can  rise  through  the  scale  of  numbers,  always  repeating 
the  addition  of  two,  and  thus  learning  to  know  them  by  a 
new  relation. 

C.  —  Collections. 

309.  With  the  science  of  numbers  arises  the  knowledge 
of  collections  of  like  objects. 

The  child  will  henceforth  have  a  distinct  idea  of  collec- 
tions composed  of  two,  and  those  composed  of  three,  objects  ; 
but  as  yet  he  will  have  only  a  confused  idea  of  those  com- 
posed of  larger  numbers.  He  will,  indeed,  be  able  to  dis- 
cern the  many  and  the  few  ;  for,  having  a  confused  idea  of 
more  numerous  collections,  and  a  clear  idea'  of  two  or  three 
things,  he  will  easily .  recognize  that  there  are  collections 
more  numerous  than  those  he  has  a  clear  knowledge  of. 

D.  —  Means. 

310.  Before  this  the  child  could  not  have  the  conception 
of  means  ;  but  it  is  possible  for  him  now,  because  he  hence- 
forth knows  two  things,  the  one  of  which  conditions  the 
other  (no.  305) .  This  again  immensely  increases  his  mental 
activity  ;  for  now  he  can  not  only  instinctively,  as  before,  but 
by  an  intellectual  calculation,  subordinate  a  means  to  an 
end.  He  cannot,  however,  as  yet  subordinate  a  series  of 
means,  each  to  the  other ;  this  requires  reflection  belonging 
to  a  higher  order. 

E.  —  Intellectual  Perception  of  One's  Self  (of  the  I  proper). 

311.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  age  at  which  man  perceives 
himself  has  never  been  accurately  examined  by  philoso- 
phers. They  have  generally  accepted  it  as  a  settled  thing, 
requiring  no  proof,  that  man  perceives  himself  from  the 
first  moment  of  his  existence,  and  that  he  could  perceive 
nothing  without  having  first  perceived  himself. 

But  these  gratuitous  suppositions  are  not  supported  by 


PERCEPTION    OF   SELF.  225 

exact  observation  of  this  important  fact.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  certain  that  man  perceives  and  understands  many  other 
things  before  he  perceives  and  understands  himself,  and  that 
he  does  not  know  the  true  value  of  the  monosyllable  I  before 
having  reached  the  fourth  or  fifth  order  of  cognitions. 

Moreover,  observation  gives  us  another  result,  which  is, 
that  the  knowledge  man  acquires  of  the  I  varies  both  in 
degree  and  form  at  different  ages,  and,  therefore,  that  this 
word  /  (like  so  many  others) ,  pronounced  by  him  at  one  time 
of  his  life,  has  a  meaning  different  from  that  which  it  bears 
at  another.^ 

We  must  now  say  something  on  this  head,  and  for  this 
purpose  we  will  briefly  take  up  again  the  analysis  of  the  /, 
given  already  elsewhere.^ 

The  I  expresses  the  human  being  who  is  speaking,  and 
who  names  himself  as  existing,  as  acting.^ 

1  This  observation  appears  to  me  of  the  utmost  importance  for  logic ;  for  it  ex- 
plains the  reason  why  men  who  are  quite  honest  can  talk  at  length  on  some  subjects 
without  arriving  at  a  common  understanding.  To  discover  and  determine  the 
value  each  man  gives  to  ivords,  at  the  different  periods  of  life,  would  be  a  great  and 
most  important  aid  to  the  art  of  education.  The  reader  will  have  perceived  that 
we  are  endeavoring  to  lay  down  the  elements  of  such  an  aid,  and  will,  perhaps, 
in  view  of  our  object,  condone  our  dwelling  on  certain  subtle  portions  of  it  which 
cannot  have  much  interest  for  those  who  do  not  enter  into  our  more  remote  views. 
Words  change  their  meanings  in  men's  mouths,  not  only  according  to  their  various 
stages  of  intellectual  life,  but  also  through  other  circumstances.  To  find  these 
out,  and  to  track  prejudice  and  error  to  their  most  secret  recesses,  is  to  prepare  the 
way  for  agreement  between  honest-minded  men.  So  moral  is  the  office  of  logic! 
How  much  of  new  dignity  would  this  science  receive,  if  those  who  taught  it  to  the 
young  revealed,  step  by  step,  its  natural  co-ordination  with  virtue  and  the  peace 
of  the  human  race  ! 

2  Anthropology,  nos.  805-811. 

3  When  the  Chaldean  translator  of  Genesis  gave  the  famous  passage  in  that 
book  (ch.  ii.  v.  7)  thus  :  "  And  he  (Adam)  was  made  a  speaJcincj  *  soul,"  he  showed 
that  he  conceived  man,  not  in  his  earliest,  natural  state,  but  in  that  which  follows 
the  earliest,  when,  having  perceptions  of  external  things,  his  organs  of  speech  are 
stirred  without  any  deliberation  on  his  part,  or  seeking  of  words.  Apart  from  his 
external  perceptions  and  his  inward  sense  of  divine  grace,  the  first  man  nnist  have 
heard  God  himself  speak,  and  have  learnt  immediately  from  him  a  part,  at  least, 
of  language.  All  this,  however,  does  not  necessarily  presuppose  the  perception  of 
the  /,  but  may  take  place  at  an  earlier  period. 

*  Jfote  of  Translator. —  In  the  English  Authorized  Version  it  is  "man  became  a  living  soul." 


226  ON   THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

Now,  the  human  being  is  composed  primarily  of  two 
principles  :  ( 1 )  the  animal  principle  ;  (  2 )  the  spiritual  prin- 
ciple. These  two  are,  however,  so  related  that  the  first  is 
bound  to  the  second,  and  the  second  exercises  its  strength 
and  dominion  over  the  first,  in  such  sort  that  both  can  be 
reduced  to  one  sole  and  supreme  principle,  —  the  principle  of 
intelligence,  which  has  power  also  over  the  animal  principle 
conjoined  to  it.  This  supreme  principle,  together  with  the 
inferior  elements  bound  up  with  it,  is  man^  but  is  not  yet 
the  /. 

The  two  principles  indicated  are  both  feelings,  and,  there- 
fore, man  is  never  without  feeling.  He  himself  is  an  intel- 
ligent-volitional feeling,  which  governs  another  sensitive- 
instinctive  feeling.  But  this  sentient  man  is  not  the  /, 
because  the  /  is  not  a  feeling ;  it  is  a  consciousness. 

312.  How  and  when  does  man,  then,  form  that  conscious- 
ness of  himself  which  he  afterwards  expresses  by  the 
monosyllable  I  ?  I  will  first  state  a  plausible  reason  for  the 
belief  that  he  forms  it  very  early,  or  rather  that  he  cannot  be 
without  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  as  I  have  shown  in 
m}^  Ideology^  from  the  first,  ideal  being  is  manifested  in  man. 
To  say  that  ideal  hemg  is  manifested  in  Jiim,  is  to  say  that 
ideal  being  manifests  itself  in  a  substantive  feeling,  and  that 
this  feeling  is  himself.  This  substantive  feeling  and  the 
being  effulgent  in  it  are,  therefore,  united.  It  might  seem 
to  follow  that  this  union  would  suflfice  to  make  the  subject 
perceive  himself,  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  affirmed  elsewhere, 
that  "feeling  is  as  the  scene  on  which  objects  appear  and 
become  visible  to  us."  ^  I  do  not  cancel  the  latter  state- 
ment. It  is  certain  that  nothing  can  be  intellectually  per- 
ceived by  us,  but  that  which  affects  our  substantive  feeling. 
Hence,  I  grant  that  the  feeling  itself,  being  that  through 

*  See  Opuscoli  Filosojici,  Vol.  I.  pp.  99  and  following,  of  the  Milan  edition, 
1827.     Teodicea,  Lib.  L 


CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    SELF.  227 

which  the  understanding  sees  whatever  things  it  does  see, 
itself  may  be  seen,  without  needing  to  be  presented  to  us  by 
any  other  feeling. 

But,  first,  in  the  substantive  feeling  we  must  distinguish 
the  act  by  which  it  sees  being  from  its  other  acts.  Now  the 
act  by  which  it  sees  being  can  never  be  that  by  which  it 
sees  itself ;  it  is  rather  an  act  which  excludes  the  vision  of 
itself.  In  so'far,  then,  as  feeling  directly  goes  out  towards 
being,  it  is  unknown  to  itself.  But,  be  it  carefully  noted 
here,  man,  and,  above  all,  the  Ego^  is  essentially  the  principle 
which  sees  being ;  it  is  the  substantive-intelligent  feeling. 
Deprived  of  that  feeling,  man  ceases  to  exist.  He  has  no 
consciousness  of  himself  until  he  has  the  consciousness  of 
being  intelligent.  In  order,  then,  to  attain  such  a  conscious- 
ness, the  substantive  feeling  must  not  only  see  being,  but 
must  see  itself  as  seeing  it.-^  It  is  not  enough  for  this  that 
it  should  be  present  at  the  scene  whereon  things  become 
visible  ;  it  must,  besides,  by  a  new  act  of  its  own,  attribute 
the  being  it  sees  to  itself  as  seeing  being,  and  through  this 
attribution  illumine  and  see  itself  in  being.  This  new  act 
required  of  it  must  be  its  own,  not  given  by  nature,  but  a 
spontaneous  impulse  due  to  some  want  or  stimulus.  This 
is  the  important  operation  it  has  still  to  perform,  in  order 
that  it  may  perceive  itself. 

While,  then,  all  that  falls  within  his  feeling  is  capable  of 
being  seen  by  man,  and  feeling  itself,  seeing  being  (itself), 
enjoys  this  advantage,  it  must  be  added,  that  the  con- 
dition of  this  vision  or  perception  is  a  new  act  proceeding 
from  within  the  subject,  an  act  of  the  faculty  of  attention^ 
concentrating  and  fixing  itself  upon  the  object  it  wants  to 
see ;   and  by  this  act,  the   mind  (the   substantive  feeling) 

1  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  enable  man  to  ex- 
press what  he  sees  :  he  still  requires  much  more  observation  of  what  he  sees 
internally,  and  the  words  to  express  accurately  what  he  sees.  All  the  efforts 
of  philosophy,  and  of  the  centuries,  must  be  applied  to  the  elucidation  of  this 
great  fact. 


228  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

beholds  itself  as  seeing  being,  together  with  the  being  seen 
and  contained  in  the  latter,  as  in  its  own  genus. 

Will,  then,  this  act  of  self-knowledge,  involved  as  it 
is,  be  easier  than  the  acts  by  which  the  mind  knows  other 
things  ? 

313.  The  sentient  man  works  through  knowledge,  and  he 
knows  first  the  things  which  are  needful  to  him.  But  it  is 
not  in  the  least  necessary  for  him  that  he  shohld  know  him- 
self ;  what  he  needs  are  other  things  which  he  has  not  but 
wants  to  have,  and  exerts  himself  to  obtain,  and  must  know 
in  order  to  work  for  them.  He  does  not  seek  himself,  be- 
cause he  possesses  himself ;  but  he  seeks  the  things  which 
complete  this  self,  which  supply  what  it  lacks,  meets  all  its 
deficiencies  and  limitations.  Man  is  an  incomplete  being  ; 
for  if  he  sufficed  to  himself,  he  would  seek  nothing  beyond ; 
he  would  have  no  motive  activity,  but  solely  a  statical  one. 
His  very  sensations  of  pain  and  pleasure  are  not  conceived 
by  him  except  as  connected  with  external  objects,  and  it  is 
in  these  that  he  supposes  them  to  exist  (no.  103). 

Man,  then,  can  be  roused  only  by  language  to  turn  his 
attention  on  himself. 

But  language  itself  is  not  learned  by  the  child  all  at  once  ; 
he  must  pass  through  several  orders  of  cognitions  before  he 
can  understand  all  the  parts  of  speech. 

We  have  already  seen  that,  at  the  second  order  of  cog- 
nitions, he  learns  only  substantive,  or  rather  substantiated, 
nouns  ;  nor  is  it  until  the  third  order  that  he  arrives  at  form- 
ing an  abstract  idea  of  the  action  of  things.  Hence  it  is  only 
then  that  he  can  name  his  own  actions,  and  he  can  still  only 
name  them  objectively,  the  same  as  the  actions  of  all  other 
things.  He  has,  indeed,  the  feeling  of  his  own  actions, 
which  is  simply  an  extension  of  his  substantive  feeling,  but 
nothing  more.  His  actions  are  external,  and  fall  under  his 
senses  like  the  actions  of  others ;  he  himself^  on  the  other 


CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    SELF.  229 

hand  is  internal,  —  is  an  invisible  principle  producing  them. 
Hence  he  knows  his  own  actions  before  he  knows  that  they 
are  his  own,  —  before  his  understanding  refers  them  to  him- 
self ;  for  he  himself  does  not  yet  exist  for  his  understand- 
ing. He  arrives,  indeed,  in  the  third  stage  of  cognition,  at 
attributing  the  actions  to  a  being,  but  not  at  observing, 
among  beings,  which  of  them  is  himself. 

In  the  fourth  order  of  cognition,  certainly  not  earlier,  and 
perhaps  later,  he  is  able  to  perceive  himself  as  the  acting 
principle,  by  means  of  language ;  that  is,  he  can  recall  his 
own  attention  from  without  to  his  own  motive  feeling^  and 
thus  perceive  that  certain  actions  have  for  their  cause  that 
feeling  which  constitutes  himself,  and  in  this  differ  from 
others  that  are  not  so  produced.  The  first  and  elementary 
cognition  of  himself  by  man  consists,  then,  in  this  perception 
of  "  himself  in  action,"  ^  the  word  himself  meaning  here  the 
substantive  feeling  which  constitutes  man  as  perceived  by 
that  same  man. 

314.  This  motor  feeling  can  be  very  well  expressed  by 
the  word  /;  but  this  word  has  not  yet  the  full  meaning 
which  belongs  to  it,  and  which  men  in  a  later  stage  of 
development  will  attribute  to  it. 

The  /  is  never  uttered  alone,  but  always  with  some  verb 
expressed  or  implied,^  a  manifest  proof  of  the  legitimacy  of 
the  method  by  which  we  have  explained  its  origin.  The 
first  /  is  then  ''the  substantive  feeling  in  action,  perceiving 

1  When  St.  John  Chrysostom  explained  the  words  in  Genesis  ii.  7:  Factus  est 
homo  in  animam  viventem  by  factus  est  homo  in  animam  operantem  (in  Gen. 
Homily  xiii.)  he  expressed  the  conception  of  man  i.-  the  state  he  is  in  previous  to 
the  use  of  speech. 

2  In  the  ancient  languages  the  personal  pronouns  were  enough  without  the 
addition  of  the  verb  to  be ;  a  proof  that  the  verb  was  contained  in  the  conception 
of  the  pronoun,  and  did  not  require  to  be  expressed  ;  for  example,  in  Scripture 
God  says  "I  the  same"  ({<^n  O^?  Bent,  xxxii.  39;  Isai.  xliii.  10)  for  "I  am 
the  same,"  and  elsewhere  we  read,  "Thou  thyself,  O  Jehovah,  our  God!" 
r\^T}  nnX  (Jerem.  xiv.  22),  i.  e.,  "  Thou  art  our  God."  Innumerable  examples  of 
the  same  kind  might  be  added,  in  which  the  substantive  verb  is  considered  as 
included  in  the  pronoun  itself. 


230  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

and  expressing  itself."  But,  reflecting  further  on  himself, 
man  comes  to  know  the  identity  of  himself  sx)eaMng  and  him- 
self spoken  of  and  then  the  I  receives  a  fuller  meaning,  and 
comes  to  signify  the  acting  human  being  (the  acting  sub- 
stantive feeling)  perceiving  himself  as  acting  and  express- 
ing himself  as  such,  knowing  that  he  who  speaks  is  the  same 
as  he  who  is  spoken  of.  This  meaning  of  the  monosyllable 
I  can  be  attributed  to  it  only  by  the  man  who  has  reached, 
at  least,  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions. 

The  inclusion  of  so  many  and  such  abstruse  elements  in 
this  monosyllable  explains  why  it  is  understood  so  late  and 
with  so  much  difficulty. 

I  made  the  experiment  on  a  man  of  over  forty,  half  an 
idiot,  named  Stef  ano  Birti.  He  could  speak  and  understand  ; 
but  was  not  intelligent  enough  to  compass  the  use  of  per- 
sonal pronouns.  When  he  spoke  of  himself,  it  was  always 
in  the  third' person,  by  his  name,  Stefano  ;  he  would  say,  for 
example  :  ''  Stefano  is  a  good  man,"  or  "  Stefano  is  poor"  ; 
or  "Stefano  eats  such  a  thing,  or  does  so  and  so."  Only 
when  he  pronounced  Stefano  he  pointed  to  himself,,  and 
when  he  named  others  he  pointed  in  the  same  way  to  them. 
I  tried  again  and  again  to  make  him  understand  the  use  of 
the  personal  pronouns  /,  thoii^  he.  He  would  repeat  them 
after  me,  but  only  mechanically,  without  being  able  to  apply  ' 
them,  or  showing  the  least  inkling  of  their  meaning.  Sup- 
posing, I  said  to  him,  "  I  did  such  a  thing,"  he  would  repeat 
*'I  did  such  a  thing";  if  I  said,  "Stefano,  were  you  in 
such  a  place  ? "  instead  of  answering  me  he  would  repeat, 
"  Stefano,  were  you  in  such  a  place?"  But,  if  I  put  the 
question  in  the  third  person,  he  would  answer  me  and  reply 
to  the  question.^ 

1  Note  of  Translator.  — These  facts  are  confirmed  by  the  most  ordinary  obser- 
vations on  little  children.  The  use  of  personal  pronouns  marks  an  epoch  in  their 
Intellectual  development.  It  was  noted,  as  the  surest  sign  of  very  unusual  precocity, 
in  a  little  grand-niece  of  my  own,  that  she  used  the  pronouns  /  and  you  at  sixteen 
months,  the  ordinary  age  being  two  years  and  a  half  or  three,  and  often  later. 


DIFFICULTY   WITH    PRONOUNS.  231 

315.  I  have  before  stated  that  we  find  in  the  peoples  of 
antiquity  a  gradation  of  intelligence  similar  to  that  which 
we  observe  in  children,  and  that  ancient  languages  retain  the 
traces  of  it.  We  find  similar  traces  of  the  infancy  of  nations 
with  regard  to  our  present  subject,  in  the  fact  that,  the  older 
a  language  is,  the  less  do  the  persons  introduced  as  speaking 
make  use  of  the  personal  pronouns  /  and  thou.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  the  use  of  the  third  person,  rather  than 
the  first,  is  so  common  as  the  mode  of  address  in  Oriental 
languages.^ 

If  we  now  turn  our  attention  to  children,  we  shall  easily 
perceive  the  diflSculty  they  find  in  using  correctly  the  per- 
sonal pronouns  /  and  thou.  I  am  glad  to  quote,  in  preference 
to  my  own,  the  observations  of  others,  where  they  are  con- 
firmed by  my  own,  such  testimony  precluding  the  accusation 
that  I  bend  the  facts  to  support  my  theory.  The  follow- 
ing words,  which  completely  bear  me  out,  were  written  by  a 

1  The  Biblical  scholars  of  Germany  have  observed  that,  when  our  Lord  in  the 
Gospels  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third  person  as  "the  Son  of  Man,"  he  uses  a 
form  of  speech  proper  to  Oriental  languages.  (Paulus,  Exeg.  Handh.  1,  6,  p.  465  ; 
Fritzche,  in  Matt.  p.  320) ;  but  these  biblicists,  full  of  apparent  knowledge  and  most 
real  ignorance,  can  never  rise  to  the  comprehension  of  the  force  of  that  expression 
as  used  by  the  Man-God  in  speaking  of  himself.  Let  me  here  make  another  obser- 
vation on  the  genius  of  Oriental  languages.  Even  when  they  use  the  pronouns  / 
and  tJiou^  they  easily  mix  them  up  with  the  third  person,  as  if  they  had  not  yet 
attained  sufficient  skill  in  the  art  of  applying  them.  This  is  apparent  each  time 
that  the  relative  pronoun,  expressed  or  understood,  follows  the  personal  pronouns. 
We  will  take  our  examples  as  before  from  the  Hebrew.  In  Ezekiel  (xxi.  25),  the 
prince  of  Israel  is  thus  addressed  :  "  And  thou,  O  deadly  wounded,  wicked  one,  the 
prince  of  Israel,  whose  day  is  come."  This  passage,  if  translated  literally,  would 
not  be  rendered,  by  "whose  day  is  come,"  but  "to  whom  comes  his  day,"  in  the 
third  person.  In  Isaiah  likewise,  the  passage  (liv.  1)  translated  in  the  Vulgate: 
\mLda  sterilis,  qua  non  paris:  decanta  laudem  et  hymnum,  quae  non  pariebas, 
tvould  be  rendered  literally  from  the  Hebrew  :  "  Sing,  O  barren,  she  who  did  not 
bear  ;  break  forth  into  singing,  neigh,  she  that  did  not  travail  with  child,"  131  X7, 
where  the  second  pereon  is  changed  to  the  third.  In  the  following  passage,  also 
from  Isaiah  (xxviii.  16),  the  first  person  is  in  the  same  manner  changed  into  the 
third:  "  Behold  me,  he  who  laid  the  foundation,"  TDJ|  "'D3n.  There  are  many 
other  cases  in  Hebrew  where  the  sentence  begun  in  the  first  or  second  person  ends 
in  the  third,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  Hebraists.  The  ancients  had  a  difficulty  in 
holding  firmly  to  the  first  and  second  persons. 


232  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

woman  who  assuredly  had  no  thought  of  supporting  me  in 
her  observations  and  writings,  and  whose  remarks  I  am 
always  glad  to  quote,  for  their  general  truth  and  sagacity : 

"  That  which  most  puzzles  the  poor  child's  brain  is  the  use  of 
pronouns.  Me  and  /  especially  remain  for  a  long  while  as  in  a 
fog  to  him.  These  words  being  applicable  solely  to  him  who 
utters  them,  they  are  not  applied  to  the  child  in  speaking  to  him 
of  himself.  He  sees  their  object  changed  at  every  moment, 
without  ever  himself  becoming  that  object.^  Hence  he  never 
thinks  of  using  them.  Even  when  he  wants  to  designate  his  own 
person,  he  considers  himself,  as  it  were,  from  without,^  and  speaks 
of  himself  by  his  name,  as  he  would  speak  of  any  one  else.  Give 
to  Albert,  take  Albert,  that  is  his  way  of  expressing  himself.  I 
have  heard  a  child,  to  whom  those  about  him  said  thou,  always  use 
the  pronoun  fhou  in  speaking  of  himself.  It  would  be  curious  to 
observe  the  introduction  of  /."  ^ 


316.  It  is  only  at  this  period  that  the  child's  mind  can 
begin  to  form  the  conception  of  time.  This  conception 
is  not  formed,  at  first,  by  comparing  the  three  parts  of 
time,  the  present,  the  past,  and  the  future,  but  by  com- 
paring two  of  them  only,  the  present  with  the  past,  or 
the  present  with  the  future.  This  is  as  much  as  can  be 
compassed  by  the  child  who  has  reached  only  the  fourth 
order  of  its  cognitions. 

At  the  thh'd  order,  he  has  attained  a  clear  idea  of  the 

1  The  /,  in  fact,  presupposes,  as  we  have  seen,  1st,  that  he  who  uses  it  has  the 
abstract  conception  of  the  act  of  speaking  ;  2d,  that  he  refers  this  act  of  speaking 
to  a  speaking  subject;  3d,  that  he  understands  tliat  the  /indicates  precisely  that 
speaking  subject.  Who  does  not  see  how  difficult  it  must  be  for  the  little  child 
to  do  all  this,  and  even  more  than  this,  as  we  have  shown  in  the  analysis  of 
the  I? 

2  This  observation  contains  an  entire  demonstration  of  our  ideological  theory, 
which  shows  that  the  understanding  has  for  its  form  the  essential  object,  which 
is  universal  being. 

'  Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  XI.  j  c,  vi. 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   TIME.  233 

number  two ;  at  the  fourth,  he  can  compare  two  distinct 
things  and  perceive  their  differences.  The  operation  of 
distinguishing  time  present  from  time  past,  or  time  present 
from  time  future,  belongs  to  this  fourth  stage ;  but  to 
distinguish  all  three  periods,  by  comparing  them  together, 
is  absolutely  impossible  before  the  fifth  stage. 

317.  Let  it  be  noted,  moreover,  that  we  are  not  now 
speaking  of  time  as  entirely  abstracted  from  events,  but 
of  time  considered  as  a  quality,  as  predicable  of  events. 
That  one  event  ceases  to  exist  when  another  begins,  or 
that  one  event  succeeds  another,  remains  stamped  as  a 
fact  on  the  retentive  faculty  of  the  child,  by  the  mere 
imitative  force  of  his  animal  nature.  Later  on,  events  are 
linked  together  by  the  associations  of  ideas  ;  but  this  is  not 
yet  the  conception  of  time  in  events.  The  child  must  note 
the  event  which  took  place  yesterday,  and  distinguish  it 
from  that  which  takes  place  to-*day,  by  comparing  the  one 
with  the  other ;  or  he  must  distinguish  the  event  of  to-day 
from  that  which  will  happen  to-morrow,  before  we  can 
say  that  he  has  formed  the  conception  of  time  present 
and  time  past,  or  of  the  present  and  the  future. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  time  is  a  predicate  of  events 
which  does  not  fall  under  the  senses ;  it  is  a  limitation 
of  the  super-sensible  existence  of  things.  The  mind,  there- 
fore, requires  language  to  fix  and  retain  it.  Moreover,  the 
child's  power  of  attention  is  but  little  developed  *as  yet, 
and  the  small  force  it  can  exert  is  wholly  absorbed  in 
the  objects  that  are  present,  so  that  scarcely  any  remains 
for  what  is  past  and  for  what  is  to  come.  Hence,  obser- 
vation shows  that  children  are  late  in  distinguishing  one 
time  from  another. 

"It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  infant  imagination  that  it  is 
occupied  solely  with  the  present,  differing  thus  widely  from 
ours,  ever  stretching  forwards  or  backwards,  recalling  the 


234  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

past  to  life  or  anticipating  the  future.  The  little  child  is 
a  stranger  to  the  events  of  the  day  before.  An  accident 
which  has  happened  by  its  fault  is  a  fact  like  any  other, 
which  it  has  nothing  more  to  do  with.  It  is  new-born 
each  morning  with  the  feeling  of  innocence,  and  feels  itself 
justified  of  all  wrong-doing  by  simply  saying,  '  It  was  yes- 
terday.'"^ 

We  find  another  proof  of  the  difficulty  which  the  child 
experiences  in  marking  time  properly,  in  the  steps  by 
which  he  acquires  the  use  of  language,  the  true  mirror  of 
his  conception.  For  a  long  time,  he  uses  the  verb  in  the 
infinitive^  and  not  until  much  later  does  he  express  the 
various  tenses.  We  find  the  same  thing  in  the  languages 
of  some  peoples  backward  in  intellectual  culture.  In  the 
most  ancient  languages,  also,  the  verb  has  but  few  tenses, 
which  are  not  well  determined,  and  the  use  of  which  is 
uncertain.^  • 

C— First  Definite  Principles,  drawn  from  the  Ideas  of  Actions. 

318.  Ideas,  already  numerous  in  the  child's  mind,  very 
soon  become  principles,  by  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  hence- 
forth judges  and  acts  (nos.  270  and  foil.).  For  an  idea, 
however,  to  acquire  the  form  and  value  of  a  principle,  it 
must  remain  a  certain  time  in  the  human  mind ;  its  appli- 
cation belongs,  in  fact,  to  the  next  higher  order  of  cog- 
nitions, to  that  of  the  idea  itself.  Hence,  the  ideas  of 
the  third  order  become  principles  in  the  fourth. 

Amongst  those  ideas  we  found  those  which  belong  to 
actions  (nos.  260  and  foil.) .  The  most  important  principles, 
then,  which  the  child  acquires  in  the  fourth  stage  of  cog- 
nitions are  those  which  he  works  out  from  the  ideas  of 
actions. 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  v. 

2  In  Hebrew,  there  are  only  the  j^f^st  and  the  future,  the  simple  present  being 
understood  in  the  participles  or  the  infinitives,  the  nouns  or  pronouns,  or  else 
expressed  by  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  tenses, 


IDEAS    OF   ACTIONS.  235 

When  he  has  learned  to  know  the  actions  of  things,  and 
has  seen  the  same  actions  repeated  many  times^  he  begins 
to  conceive  the  constant  method  which  governs  them,  and 
is  able  to  foresee  in  what  manner'  a  given  object  before  him 
will  act,  what  force  it  will  exert,  what  effects  will  follow 
from  tliis  cause.  In  this  manner,  he  gradually  sets  limits  to 
the  power  of  the  various  objects  known  to  him,  and  he 
ceases  to  expect  more  from  them  than  certain  definite  opera- 
tions. Should  they  produce  any  unusual  effects,  he  wonders 
at  them,  as  strange  to  his  belief  and  expectation. 

319.  Until  the  child  has  learned  to  connect  certain  things 
with  certain  actions,  his  credulity  is  unbounded :  nothing 
seems  impossible  to  him.  When  he  hears  his  mother  speak 
as  if  she  knew  what  he  had  done  out  of  her  sight,  or  his 
nurse  says  to  him  that  her  little  finger  has  told  her  of  some 
piece  of  naughtiness  he  has  committed,  why  is  he  not 
surprised?  Simply  because  he  has  not  yet  firmly  grasped 
the  limitation  of  bodies  precluding  their  existence  in  more 
than  one  place,  or  the  limitation  of  the  senses  precluding 
hearing  beyond  a  certain  distance,  or  the  limitation  ii? 
the  action  of  the  little  finger  precluding  the  power  of 
knowing  or  communicating  things.  I  remember  several 
incidents  of  my  own  childhood  which  prove  how  slowly 
children  set  a  limit  to  the  actions  of  things.  My  uncle 
Ambrose,  who  took  such  care  of  my  childhood,  was  very 
tall,  and  I,  in  my  childish  belief,  deemed  his  strength 
irresistible.  One  day,  when  I  was  playing  about  his  knees 
with  the  freedom  he  always  allowed  me,  he  said,  becom- 
ing grave  :  "  Be  quiet,  or  I  will  give  you  a  fillip  that  will  send 
you  out  of  that  window"  (one  which  was  standing  open  in 
front  of  him).  The  threat  did  not  frighten  me,  for  I  knew 
he  loved  me  too  well  to  do  me  harm ;  but  I  was  amazed  at 
the  strength  of  his  fingers,  and  went  about  gravely  telling 
every  one  that  my  uncle  was  so  strong  that,  with  a  single 


236  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

fillip  he  could  send  people  out  of  the  window,  and  I  believed 
it  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 

It  is  experience,  then,  that  limits  in  the  child's  mind  the 
action  of  things,  and,  previous  to  this  experience,  he  places 
no  such  limitations,  but  believes  everything  possible  ;  his 
credulity  is  boundless.  His  faith  in  the  assertions  of  others 
depends  very  much,  as  we  have  seen,  on  his  affection  for 
them ;  but  no  affection  would  move  his  understanding  to 
assent  to  that  which  he  believed  to  be  absurd.  He  does  not 
believe  it  absurd  that  objects  should  have  certain  virtues 
and  faculties  which  we  adults  know  them  not  to  have,  until 
he  has  learned  from  the  facts  themselves  the  non-existence 
of  such  attributes.  These  facts  deserve  to  be  well  med- 
itated on,  for  they  are  pregnant  with  important  conse- 
quences, supporting  the  doctrines  of  ideology  and  anthro- 
pology. And,  indeed,  two  things  remain  to  be  explained  in 
the  credulity  of  the  child  prior  to  experience  :  1st,  why  he 
believes  everything  to  be  possible  ;  2d,  why  or  how  expe- 
rience brings  limitation  to  this  possibility. 
«  No  ideological  theory  can  give  an  adequate  answer  to  the 
first  of  these  queries,  except  that  which  makes  ideal  inde- 
terminate being  innate  in  man ;  which  being  contains  and 
exhibits  in  itself  universal  possibility.  So  long,  then,  as 
the  child  has  no  other  rule  of  judgment,  except  this  of 
mere,  bare  possibility  innate  in  him,  he  will  judge  every- 
thing to  be  possible ;  he  will  believe  everything,  excepting 
only  what  seems  to  him  intrinsically  or  metaphysically 
impossible ;  for  to  that  even  the  child  will  never  give 
his  assent.  Without  this  innate  idea  he  could  not,  and 
would  not,  judge  anything  to  be  possible.  Here,  then, 
is  one  more  fact,  in  addition  to  the  innumerable  others 
which  I  have  adduced  elsewhere,  in  confirmation  of  the 
philosophical  theory  I  have  propounded,  and  it  would  l)e 
for  the  honor  of  Italy,  tliat  the   assertions  printed  and  re- 


LIMITATIONS   TO   PASSIBILITY.  237 

printed  among  ns,  to  the  effect  that  this  theory  is  unsup- 
ported by  proofs  derived  from  experience,  and  rests  only 
on  reasoning  by  exchision,  in  which  it  is  doubtful  whether 
every  part  is  fairly  enumerated,^  should  come  to  an  end. 

320.  In  order  to  answer  the  second  query,  we  must  recall 
what  I  have  said  elsewhere  on  the  origin  and  the  strength 
of  the  principle  of  analogy.^  When  man  finds  a  given 
effect  constantly  occurring  through  a  long  space  of  time, 
he  becomes  convinced  that  it  will  always  occur  in  the 
same  way,  and,  in  consequence,  if  the  event  is  periodical, 
as,  for  instance,  the  rising  of  the  sun,  he  predicts  that, 
when  the  period  returns,  the  event  will  take  place.  The 
reason  of  this  is,  that  the  mind  conceives  the  cause  of 
the  event ;  it  conceives  that  the  event  cannot  stand  alone  ; 
that  it  must  ultimately  be  the  effect  of  one  or  more  sub- 
stances ;  and  it  has  an  intimate  notion  of  the  stability 
of  substances.  Seeing  the  constant  order  of  nature,  it  does 
not  hesitate  to  judge  it  invariable,  unconsciously  performing 
this  whole  process  of  reasoning:  i.  e.,  "that  which  occurs 
in  this  universe  is  the  effect  of  something  constant ;  there- 
fore, it  will  continue  to  occur  in  future." 

It  is  by  a  process  somewhat  similar  to  this,  beginning 
in  his  infancy  and  going  on  throughout  his  long  develop- 
ment, that  man  makes  up  his  principles,  opinions,  and 
belief,  regarding  the  working  of  things.  Seeing  effects 
occur  always  in  the  same  way,  certain  occurrences  always 
proceeding  from  certain  objects,  certain  others  always 
absent,    he    connects    the    actions   with    the    objects,    the 

1  That  the  enumeration  of  all  the  parts  is  complete  should,  I  think,  be  evident 
to  the  reader  of  the  Neiv  Essay,  nos.  467  and  foil.  No  one  has  ever  been  able  to 
impugn  my  argument  (an  argument  which  does  not  stand  alone,  but  is  conjoined 
with  so  many  others) ;  and  yet  there  have  been  many  who,  with  a  recklessness  and 
presumption  which  would  be  incredible  anywhere  else,  but,  to  our  shame,  are 
only  too  credible  among  us  Italians,  have  thrown  vague  doubts  upon  it,  wholly 
unsupported  by  proofs. 

2  See  Treatise  Delia  Coscienza  Morale,  nos.  198  and  foil.,  Logica,  no.  GOG. 


238  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

entities,  and  arrives  at  certain  persuasions,  which,  if 
formulated,  would  run  thus :  This  entity  has  the  power  to 
produce  these  effects  and  not  others  ;  the  potency  of  this 
entity  extends  only  so  far,  has  such  and  such  limits,  such 
and  such  a  nature,  form,  laws,  etc.  Whenever  man  has 
succeeded  in  establishing  for  himself  one  or  the  other  of 
these  principles,  he  has  restricted  in  so  far  the  sphere  of 
his  credulity  ;  for,  if  any  one  should  tell  him  of  an  occur- 
rence in  contradiction  with  the  principles  he  has  formed 
regarding  the  action  of  beings,  he  would  set  it  down  as 
impossible  and  refuse  to  believe  it.  Thus,  if  I  should  say 
that  a  spider  had  walked  through  the  air  without  holding 
on  to  a  thread,  I  shall  not  be  believed  by  any  one  who 
had  laid  down  in  his  mind  the  principle,  that  any  animal 
without  wings  cannot  move  freely  through  the  air.^ 

321.  Who  does  not  see  that  we  have  here  the  guiding 
thread  to  a  history  of  human  credulity  and  incredulity 
which  would  be  of  the  utmost  value? 

This  history  has  the  same  epochs  in  the  individual  as 
in  the  whole  human  race.  The  infant  begins  by  believing 
everything  which  is  not  manifestly  contradictory  (for  even 
the  infant  never  unites  yes  and  no,  but  feels  their  antago- 
nism) ;  then  it  forms  opinions  which  limit  the  powers  of 

1  Let  me  be  permitted  to  show,  from  the  words  of  a  noble  Italian  philosopher, 
how  the  principle  of  analogy  extends  through  human  life,  and  how  great  is  the 
importance  of  giving  it  a  direct  application.  "  Nevertheless,"  says  Pallavicini, 
"this  principle  is  true,  and  God  teaches  it  to  us  through  the  mouth  of  the  wise 
man:  that  which  has  been  shall  he.  For  by  this  maxim  human  life  is  governed; 
on  it  is  founded  the  structure  of  governments,  and  the  general  conduct  of  the 
people,  whether  rich  or  poor,  whether  young  or  old ;  and  in  whatever  circum- 
stances. On  this  maxim  philosophers  base  their  accounts  of  the  common  usages 
of  men;  those  who  reign  look  to  it  in  the  constitution  of  their  laws;  jurists 
depend  upon  it  in  prescribing  to  magistrates  the  rule  for  judging  from  circum- 
stances the  truth  of  facts  which  have  not  come  under  their  experience;  by  this 
are  guided  doctors,  navigators,  the  leaders  and  professors  of  all  the  arts  of  con- 
jecture, in  constructing  the  rules  of  their  professions ;  the  sole  counsellor  of  all 
these  is  the  past,  the  'sagacious  foreteller  of  the  future,'  as  I  hear  you  named 
it  yesterday."  —  Pallavicini,  Del  Bene,  Rome,  1644,  p.  232. 


IDEAS   DRAWN   FROM   ACTION.  239 

the  things  it  perceives.  These  opinions  remain  incomplete 
for  certain  recondite  reasons  which  we  have  not  time  to 
point  out  here  ;  they  are  a  web  still  on  the  loom,  so  to 
speak ;  none  of  them  are  yet  very  conclusive  or  firmly 
established  in  the  mind.  By  degrees,  however,  they 
become  conclusive  and  stable ;  but  this  stability  and  con- 
clusiveness are  not  attained  until  we  know,  not  only  that 
*'  a  given  entity  has  a  certain  determined  potency  and 
mode  of  action,"  but  have  concluded  that  "it  has  no 
other  mode  of  action,  no  other  degree  of  potency,  than 
those  it  has  constantly  manifested  to  us."  It  is  this  nega- 
tive portion  of  our  opinions  on  the  action  of  things  that 
gives  them  firmness  and  conclusiveness.  For,  until  I  have 
added  to  my  belief  that  a  given  entity  is  endowed  with 
certain  powers  exercised  in  a  certain  manner,  the  judg- 
ment that  it  has  no  other  powers  and  no  other  mode  of 
action,  my  mind  remains  open  to  accept  any  new  dis- 
covery concerning  this  entity,  and  to  enlarge  the  powers 
I  have  previously  attributed  to  it,  and  thus  to  modify 
and  amplify  my  opinions  about  it.  But,  when  my  opinion 
is  already  made  up,  and  I  have  arrived  at  an  absolute, 
not  a  provisional^  persuasion  that  "a  given  being,  ^.  e.,  a 
given  species  of  being  has  no  other  mode  or  degree  of 
action,"  then  I  shall  no  longer  give  credence  to  any  one 
who  tells  me  of  any  occurrence  involving  a  different  mode 
of  action  and  a  greater  degree  of  power  in  that  being. 
If,  however,  I  myself  should,  with  my  own  senses,  verify 
the  fact,  without  the  possibility  of  denying  it  or  explaining 
it  otherwise,  I  should  be  obliged  to  alter  my  opinion,  and 
to  form  a  wholly  new  one  concerning  the  efficiency  of  that 
object. 

322.   Here  we  come  to  the  three  things  which  are  both 

1  On  the  difference  between  provisional  and  absolute  assent,  see  the  New 
Essay,  nos.  1303  and  foil.,  Logic,  nos.  141  and  foil. 


240  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD 

interesting  and  have  an  important  bearing  on  our  investi- 
gation: —  (1)  What  is  it  that  determines  the  period  at 
which  man  comes  to  a  conckisive  opinion  on  the  efficiency 
of  things?  (2)  To  what  degree  are  those  opinions  firmly 
impressed  and  unchangeable?  .(3)  When  and  how  does 
this  process  take  place  rationally  and  when  irrationally? 
With  respect  to  the  first  query,  it  is  certain  that  neither 
individuals  nor  races  advance  with  equal  steps,  and,  there- 
fore, that  the  operations  proper  to  human  nature,  such  as 
those  of  which  we  are  speaking,  although  they  take  place 
alike  in  all  human  individuals,  do  not  take  place  in  all  at 
the  same  period ;  and  this  holds  good  in  the  development 
of  races  also.  It  would  be  impossible  to  determine  all  the 
circumstances  and  causes  which  lead  an  individual  (and  the 
same  may  be  said  of  a  nation)  to  take  such  a  step  exactly 
in  such  a  year,  on  such  a  day,  at  such  a  moment,  th^ 
minute  circumstances  which  influence  the  human  mind  being 
infinite.  It  would,  however,  be  a  valuable  inquiry,  though 
beyond  the  scope  of  this  work,  to  ascertain  the  fixed  laws 
which  undoubtedly  govern  these  occurrences. 

323.  With  respect  to  the  second  query,  as  to  the  degree 
of  strength  with  which  the  opinion  concerning  the  limits 
of  efficiency  in  things  is  held  as  final  and "  conclusive,  it 
varies  with  the  age  and  with  the  individual.  It  may  be 
said,  generally,  that  the  older  a  man  grows,  the  more 
wedded  he  becomes  to  his  opinion,  and  the  more  difficult 
it  is  for  him  to  break  it  up  and  form  a  new  one.  It  is 
liard  for  old  people  to  accept  new  opinions,  not  only 
in  philosophy,  but  in  physical  matters,  especially  if  they 
live  in  a  small  circle  of  society,  and  lead  a  uniform  life, 
with  little  variety  in  their  surroundings.  This  fact,  like 
so  many  others,  results  from  the  general  law, — that  the 
longer  and  the  more  frequently  a  man  observes  the  same 
actions  of    the   same  beings,    and  no  others,  so  nmeh  the 


IDEAS   DRAWN   FROM   ACTION.  241 

Stronger  is  his  conviction  that  the  powers  of  those  beings 
are  limited  to  those  actions,  and  cannot  go  beyond  them 
or  operate  in  any  other  manner.  This  explains  what 
experience  demonstrates,  that  man  begins  his  life  with 
universal  credulity,  which  gradually  becomes  less  and  less 
with  his  increasing  years,  and  gives  place  to  a  principle 
of  incredulity,  the  latter  in  mature  age  often  becoming  the 
predominate  one.^ 

324.  In  answer  to  the  third  query  respecting  the  rational, 
or  irrational  credulity  or  incredulity  of  man,  it  may  be 
said  in  general : 

(1)  That  the  credulity  of  the  child  is  always  rational 
because  he  has  no  reason  for  unbelief,  and  in  him  it  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  affirmation  of  absolute 
possibility^  the  only  possibility  yet  known  to  him.  Now, 
even  what  is  physically  impossible  is  not  impossible 
metaphysically,  and  the  child,  in  thus  affirming  absolute 
possibility,  affirms  the  truth.  Thus,  if  any  one  assures 
him  that  he,  the  speaker,  can  fly,  he  feels  no  distrust, 
because  he  sees  the  thing  as  possible,  and,  being  unable 
as  yet  to  measure  the  powers  of  the  person  who  addresses 
him,  he  has  no  alternative  but  to  believe  him  on  his 
word. 

(2)  That  the  incredulity  spontaneously  awakened  in  the 
'mind  not  distorted  by  passion,  is  also  rational,  because  it 

does  not  affirm  absolute  impossibility,  but  only  physical 
impossibility,  and  even  this  only  provisionally.     Thus,  if  a 

1  The  word  credulity  involves  the  conception  of  faith  in  the  assertions  of 
others.  This  is  another  reason  for  the  distrust  of  the  old,  who  have  had  large 
experience  of  the  falsehood  of  men  and  of  the  advantage  they  take  of  the 
mental  weakness  of  age.  But  our  argument  does  nof  refer  so  much  to  the 
credence  given  to  the  word  of  others,  as  to  the  facility  of  forming  new  opinions 
about  the  efficiency  of  things,  whether  on  the  testimony  of  others  or  on  our 
own  observations  and  experience,  —  observations  and  experience  which  are  neg- 
lected in  proportion  as  we  expect  less  from  them.  And  he  who  has  fully  made 
up  his  mind  ceases  to  expect  from  them  any  fresh  knowledge. 


242  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

man  disbelieves  in  an  ox  flying  through  the  air  like  an 
eagle,  he  does  not  deny  the  absolute  possibility  of  the  thing, 
but  affirms  that  the  powers  of  the  ox,  as  known  to  him  by 
multiplied  experience,  are  not  such  and  so  great  as  to  over- 
come its  weight. 

(3)  Irrational  and  erroneous  incredulity  begins  whenever 
the  man  himself  affirms  that  that  which  is  physically  impos- 
sible is  also  absolutely  impossible,  the  passage  from  the  one 
to  the  other  being  a  culpable  and  self-interested  exaggera- 
tion. It  is  the  men  of  science,  not  the  people,  who  fall  into 
this  error,  nature  thereby  giving  them  a  useful  warning,  if 
only  they  would  attend  it,  not  to  boast  too  much  of  their 
superiority  to  other  men,  who  retain  as  their  heritage,  not 
systematic  science,  but  common  sense. 

(4)  There  is  another  error  that  man  falls  into,  when 
his  judgment  regarding  physical  impossibility  is  definitive, 
instead  of  being  provisional.  This  again  is  an  exaggera- 
tion, —  the  arbitrary  decision  of  the  passionate  or  conceited 
man ;  for,  in  fact,  our  external  experience  is  often  incom- 
plete, and  forces  and  powers  remain  occult  in  things,  until 
revealed  to  us  accidentally,  to  the  confounding  of  our  judg- 
ments, which  have  erred  in  setting  certain  absolute  limits  to 
nature. 

We  have  seen  that  benevolence  inclines  the  child's  heart 
to  credulity.  In  like  manner,  malevolence  inclines  the  adult* 
to  incredulity.  But,  as  the  former  would  not  be  possible,  un- 
less there  were  a  ground  of  possibility  in  the  intellect  of  the 
child,  so  neither  could  the  man's  malevolence  and  hardness 
of  heart  make  him  so  tardy  to  believe  and  assent  to  the  truth, 
were  it  not  that  this  tardiness  rests  on  a  real  or  supposed 
ground  in  the  intellect,  and  this  ground  is  physical  impossi- 
bility, deduced  from  experience,  which  the  man  arbitrarily 
transforms,  sometimes  into  absolute  impossibility,  sometimes 
into  physical  impossibility,  not  onl}^  probable  and  provisional. 


LIMITS    OF    POSSIBILITY.  243 

but  certain  and  definitive,  refusing  every  further  experiment 
and  shutting  out  any  light  by  which  the  mind  might  receive 
better  instruction  and  iUumination. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  the  limitations  we  impose  on  the 
actions  of  things  cannot  be  regarded  as  final,  so  long  as  we 
rest  them  on  imperfect  observation  and  experience,  unsup- 
ported by  other  principles  of  reasoning.  We  have  already 
said  that  the  law  of  analogy  produces  only  probability,  not 
certainty.  ^  It  follows  that  the  conclusions  derived  from  this 
law  are  always  open  to  reconsideration  upon  new  discoveries 
and  new  arguments  :  and,  if  we  hold  these  conclusions  as 
final,  we  shall  deceive  ourselves  grievously. 

325.  Meanwhile,  if  we  observe  what  takes  place  in  the 
mass  of  mankind,  we  shall  find  that  they  early  form  for 
themselves  conclusions  and  principles  ;  but,  with  the  increase 
of  their  knowledge  and  experience,  they  abandon  these  and 
form  new  ones,  larger  and  more  accurate,  which  approximate 
more  and  more  to  the  truth  and  also  to  reason.  This  alter- 
nate process  of  forming  exclusive  and  fixed  opinions  on  the 
action  of  things,  and  of  renouncing  them  to  form  others,  is 
repeated  more  than  once  in  the  life  of  those  who  are  continu- 
ally advancing  in  the  study  and  knowledge  of  nature  ;  while, 
on  the  contrary,  those  whose  culture  remains  stationary  hold 
more  and  more  stubbornly  the  opinions  and  principles  they 
formed  at  first. 

The  more  fixed  and  narrow  these  early  opinions  become, 
the  greater  is  the  incredulity  of  him  who  holds  them.  There 
is  a  kind  of  incredulity  which  is  the  result  of  ignorance,  that 
is,  of  opinions  too  fixed  and  exclusive  concerning  the  action 
of  things.  If  I  should  try  to  convince  a  peasant  that  the 
sun  stands  still  and  that  the  earth  moves,  that  the  earth  has 
the  form  of  a  round  ball  and  is  inhabited. over  its  whole  sur- 
face, with  other  natural  truths  of  the  same  kind,  he  would  at 

1  On  the  value  of  this  law,  see  Trattato  della  Coscienza  Morale^  nos.  488  and  f  oU. 


244  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCirLE    OF   METHOD. 

first  think  I  was  making  game  of  him  ;  and,  if  I  showed 
myself  seriously  convinced  of  these  facts,  he  would  simply 
shake  his  head  and  refuse  to  listen.  The  difficulty  of  be- 
lieving certain  perfectly  true  things  which  are  believed  by 
the  learned  is  to  him  insurmountable,  and  thus  the  incredu- 
lity of  the  ignorant  is,  under  one  aspect,  greater  than  that  of 
the  scientific  man. 

Man  begins,  then,  with  universal  credulity  concerning  the 
actions  of  things,  which  he  rapidly  exchanges  for  a  species 
of  incredulity,  as  soon  as  he  has  firmly  fixed  and  concluded 
his  first  opinions  about  natural  occurrences.  But,  with  the 
progress  of  knowledge,  these  first  opinions  are  rectified  and 
enlarged,  and  the  human  mind  enters  a  new  course,  impel- 
ling it  gently  back  again  from  the  incredulity  of  ignorance 
towards  the  primitive  credulity  of  childhood,  restored*  to  it 
by  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  powers  of  nature.  This  credu- 
lity, increased  by  science,  may  itself  go  beyond  its  due  lim- 
its;  and  there  have  been  men,  reputed  men  of  science,  who 
have  believed  everything  possible  to  nature,  who  have  exag- 
gerated her  powers,  and,  unsupported  by  any  observation  or 
experience,  and  even  in  opposition  to  all  observation  and  all 
experience,  would  yet  say :  Who  can  know  all  the  secrets 
of  nature?  Who  can  prove  that  no  occult  forces  reside  in 
her  depths  capable  of  producing  phenomena  of  the  most 
extraordinary  kind  ever  witnessed?  Such  men,  with  all 
their  knowledge,  have  gone  back  wholly  to  the  universal 
credulity  of  childhood.  I  have  but  to  mention  one  word 
here,  animal  magnetism^  to  convince  the  reader  that  every- 
thing has  been  believed  by  certain  men  to  be  possible  to  the 
secret  forces  latent  in  matter,  or  in  some  way  or  another, 
in  the  universe. 

But,  while  many  have  firmly  believed  that  science  itself, 
the  fruit  of  such  arduous  study,  taught  them  that  every- 
thing was  possible  and  nothing  impossible  to  nature,  others 


INCREDULITY.  245 

have,  with  like  dogmatic  presumption,  set  their  faces  like  a 
flint  against  any  possibilities  transcending  the  conclusions 
they  themselves  have  arrived  at  regarding  the  powers  of 
nature.  Religious  incredulity  has  found  a  fancied  support, 
first  in  the  one,  and  then  in  the  other,  of  these  errors.  There 
have  been  unbelievers  who  denied  miracles  because,  they 
said,  we  cannot  tell  how  far  natural  forces  extend,  and  there- 
fore the  facts  we  term  miraculous  may  be  natural.  And 
there  have  been  others  who  have  rejected  miracles  for  the 
contrary  reason,  ^.  e.,  that  the  so-called  miraculous  events 
exceed  the  powers  of  nature,  which  are  too  well  known  to 
admit  of  any  possibilities  beyond.  There  is  something  ac- 
tually comical  in  the  inexpressibly  presumptuous  ignorance, 
tricked  out  with  grammatical  pedantry  and  philological  eru- 
dition, of  the  so-called  rationalistic  Biblicists  of  Germany, 
who  frankly  exclude  from  the  Bible  whatever  they  hold  to 
be  impossible,  as  measured  by  the  rules  of  possibility  they 
have  arbitrarily  established.^ 

Section  2.  — Morality,  Moral  Principles,  Conscience. 

326.  So  long  as  the  child  acts  from  natural  impulses  only, 
his  action  is  spontaneous,  and  no  moral  struggle  can  arise 
in  his  mind.     He  will  experience  physical  pain,  he  will  fight, 

1  One  of  these  rationalists,  in  a  work  pronounced  to  be  impious  by  public 
opinion,  has  set  his  predecessors  in  Biblical  rationalism  by  the  ears,  in  order  to 
raise  on  the  ruins  of  their  teaching  a  system  of  his  own  more  absurd  than  all  the 
rest.  He,  however,  so  far  agrees  with  them  as  to  exclude  every  supernatural  oc- 
currence, on  the  following  grounds  :  "  We  are  now  able  to  explain  through  natural 
causes  those  changes  in  the  world  and  in  man  which  were  imagined  at  one  time  to 
be  the  work  of  God  himself,  through  the  ministry  of  the  angels."  (D.  F.  Strauss, 
Vie  de  Jesus,  etc.,  V.  I.  p.  1,  Premiere  le9on,  cap.  i.  §  xvi.)  Let  us  now  consult 
Newton,  consult  all  the  greatest  physicists,  and  we  shall  find  them  all,  without  ex- 
ception, asserting  that  the  progress  of  physical  science  has  not,  and  cannot,  help  us 
to  discover  a  single  natural  cause.  We  are  ever,  tlnough  the  advance  of  science, 
learning  more  and  more  of  the  facts  of  nature,  —  facts  whose  uniformity  gives 
them  the  name  of  laws,  facts  linked  together  in  time  and  circumstances,  but  always 
facts.  Physical  science,  by  its  immense  strides,  has  succeeded  in  destroying  utterly 
ftll  the  supposed  natural  causes,  none  of  these  causes  having  been  verified  or  strictly 


246  ON   THE    RULING   PEINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

SO  to  speak,  against  the  nature  of  things,  he  will  choose 
between  the  things  which  are  pleasant  or  painful,  or  between 
those  which  are  more  or  less  pleasant ;  but  no  moral  motive 
enters  here  :  he  feels  himself  indebted  to  nature  only  for  its 
goodness  and  beaut}^,  and  this  goodness  and  beauty  are, 
in  fact,  the  measure  of  his  love  and  admiration,  as  his  love 
and  admiration  are  the  measure  and  the  rule  of  his  conduct. 

But,  as  soon  as  he  learns  through  language  to  know  the 
will  of  an  intelligent  being,  his  mother  or  nurse,  he  begins 
to  bow  before  it,  and  to  conform  himself  to  it,  with  the  sense 
of  being  bound  to  do  so  ;  as  recognizing  that  this  intelligent 
being  is  worthy  of  his  affection,  and  deserves  it  the  more 
for  being  the  first  to  give  him  love  and  service.^ 

This  state  of  mind  belongs  to  the  third  order  of  cognitions. 
Later  on,  it  happens  at  times  that  the  child  finds  the  known 
will  of  the  loved  person  (the  will  that  has  become  to  him 
a  positive  law)  in  conflict  with  some  of  his  inclinations,  and 
with  the  satisfaction  of  his  wants.  This  is  the  beginning 
of  moral  struggle  within  him,  and  creates  a  new  state  of 
mind.  Let  us  mark  well  the  moral  nature  of  this  struggle. 
While  his  judgment  of  things  around  him  was  guided  solely 
by  their  pleasantness  and  beauty,  or  their  unpleasifntness 
and  deformity,  he  had  only  to  arrange  them  in  the  order  of 

proved:  they  are  all  and  always  simply  assumed.  Hence  the  ignorance  of  physics, 
in  times  past,  could  lead  to  imagining  causes  in  nature,  and  from  these,  as  from 
so  many  demonstrated  truths,  to  explaining  the  events  in  the  world.  But  the  rigor- 
ous logic  of  modern  science,  having  shown  that  all  these  supposed  causes  are  mere 
hypotheses,  has  made  a  clean  sweep  of  them,  and  cleared  the  gTOund,  leaving  open 
the  door  for  supernatural  causes.  It  follows  that  Strauss  exhibits  the  grossest 
ignorance  of  the  state  of  modern  physics  and  its  true  results,  and  stands  little 
better,  as  regards  logic,  when  he  tells  us  that  "we  know  now  how  to  explain  by 
natural  causes  the  events  which  occur  in  the  world  and  in  humanity."  And  yet 
his  Biblical  doctrine,  —  let  us  say,  with  his  countrymen,  his  impiety,  —  rests  entirely 
on  this  fine  foundation. 

1  It  has  been  observed  that  the  affectation  of  affection  has  no  influence  with 
children,  who  have  a  fine  perception  of  the  true  or  false  in  sentiment.  *'  Eien 
n'igale,''  says  Mme.  Necker,  "  la  froideur  des  enfants  pour  les  demonstrations 
hypocrites.''    L.  II.,  c.  ii. 


EXTERNAL  WILL  IN  EDUCATION.         247 

his  affections,  giving  the  highest  place  to  the  first,  the  lowest 
to  the  second,  and  an  intermediate  one  to  others.  He 
exercised  his  moral  feeling  by  distributing  his  benevolence 
and  admiration  according  to  the  merits  of  things.  He 
might,  indeed,  as  we  said  before,  be  led  into  an  unfair 
distribution  through  the  traps  laid  for  his  judgment  by  the 
deceitfulness  of  the  people  about  him  ;  but  the  false  opinions 
so  formed,  which  governed  his  estimates,  could  not  excite  his 
remorse,  because  they  were  formed  on  appearances  which 
he  held  to  be  true,  and  on  the  word  of  persons  whom  he 
thought  himself  bound  to  trust. 

But,  when  he  comes  to  know  the  will  of  another  person, 
a  new  element  finds  entrance  into  his  mind  which  must 
necessarily  disturb  it.  The  will  of  a  person  is  something 
opposed  to  the  nature  of  things  :  in  nature  there  is  necessity ; 
in  will  all  is  free  and  contingent :  nature  is  constant,  immu- 
table ;  will  continually  changes  :  the  various  parts  of  nature, 
the  various  beings  which  compose  it,  follow  a  fixed  order 
which  seems  to  leave  no  place  for  free  will.  It  is  a  new 
thing,  which  has  no  homogeneity,  no  resemblance  with  these 
things.  The  exigencies  of  things  are  always  the  same,  but 
the  will  of  another  person  requires  sometimes  more,  some- 
times less ;  sometimes  demands  one  thing,  sometimes  the 
contrary  ;  is  sometimes  directed  to  what  is  easy  and  pleasant, 
sometimes  to  what  is  hard  and  painful.  If,  then,  the  child 
is  inclined  partly  to  conform  himself  to  the  will  of  an- 
other, partly  (as  we  shall  see)  to  make  the  latter  bend  to  his, 
he  finds  himself  at  once  in  a  condition  of  severe  struggle, 
and  called  upon  either  to  subordinate  the  subjective-objective 
order  of  natural  existences,^  or  to  dissent  from  the  will  of 
the  persons  who  rule  him.  What  is  the  effect  on  the  child 
of  this  grave  discordance  ?     How  will  he  resolve  this  moral 

1  I  call  it  subjective-objective,  because,  as  we  have  seen,  the  child  forms  his 
estimate  of  things  from  the  impressions  they  make  upon  him;  but  this  very  impres- 
sion gives  it  objectivity. 


248  THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

conflict,  the  conflict  of  two  duties  striving  for  the  govern- 
ment of   his  will? 

327.  In  the  first  place,  if  his  animal  activity  determines 
him  irresistibly  and  instantly  to  action,  it  may  very  well 
happen  tliat  he  will  forget  the  will  of  the  person  whom  he 
knows  he  ought  to  love  and  respect,  and  afterwards  that  he 
will  quietly  forget  all  that  is  past.  But,  if  that  will  is  present . 
to  his  mind,  and  he  chooses  to  disobey  it,  he  cannot  do  so 
without  pain ;  and  this  proves  that  he  sets  obedience  to  it 
above  all  his  other  duties,  and  considers  it  as  his  first  law. 
This  pain  or  incipient  remorse  is  the  source  of  his  moral 
conscience.  Conscience  is  born  in  the  hour  when  the  child 
knows  he  has  disobeyed  that  beloved  will ;  that  he  has 
sinned  against  it ;  that  he  has  preferred  to  it  other  things 
which  should  have  come  after  it,  but  which  seduced  him  from 
his  allegiance.  In  the  words,  of  one  herself  a  mother : 
''Good  to  him  means  pleasing  those  he  loves;  evil,  being 
blamed  by  them.^  The  poor  child  knows  no  better ;  even 
if  he  has  done  nothing  wrong,  he  believes  himself  guilty, 
if  he  sees  displeasure  in  his  mother's  countenance  ;  and  if 
he  has  chanced  to  give  her  real  pain,  to  strike  her  in  a  fit 
of  impatience,  his  repentance  amounts  almost  to  despair. 
I  remember  seeing  a  little  child,  in  such  a  case,  who,  without 
being  either  scolded  or  threatened,  gave  up  all  his  toys  and 
went  sobbing  bitterly  to  hide  himself  in  a  dark  corner  of 
the  room  with  his  face  to  the  wall.  Although  capricious 
and  changeable,  this  feeling  is  the  dawn  of  conscience."^ 

1  I  do  not  think  that  the  idea  of  Maine  or  2^^ci'ise  enters  into  the  first  exhorta- 
tions of  conscience,  but  only  that  of  being  in  unison  with,  or  in  opposition  to,  the 
will  of  the  beloved  one.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  moral  obligation  of  the  third  order  of 
cognitions,  which,  expressed  in  a  general  and  imperative  formula  (certainly  not 
known  to  the  child),  would  run  thus  :  "  Man  is  bound  to  act  in  accordance  with 
his  fellow-men  ";  or,  "  The  wills  of  the  several  men  should  be  in  agreement."  It  is 
the  substance  of  this  great  moral  principle  which  is  so  splendidly  manifested  in 
the  child  through  his  natural  benevolence  ;  and  the  greater  his  benevolence,  the 
more  resplendent  it  is. 

2  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.  c.  il. 


AWAKENING   OF   CONSCIENCE.  249 

The  morality,  then,  of  the  fourth  order  shows  itself  in 
conscience ;  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  this 
morality  can  be  fitly  expressed  by  the  formula :  Obey  thy 
conscience.  Conscience  is  not  yet  a  rule  of  action,  but 
only  a  consciousness  of  doing,  or  of  having  done,  wrong 
—  nothing  more. 

328.  The  formulas,  then,  of  the  fourth  order  of  cognition 
(not  that  such  formulas  are  expressed  at  this  stage,  but 
their  contents  are  there,  and  are  formulated  later  on),  or, 
let  us  say,  the  moral  principles  of  the  fourth  order,  are 
the  following : 

First,  The  harmony  of  our  own  will  with  that  of  other  in- 
telligent beings  should  be  set  above  all  other  satisfactions. 

Second.  If  there  is  a  conflict  between  them,  every  other 
satisfaction  should  be  sacrificed  to  keep  our  own  will  in 
harmony  with  that  of  others.^ 

Both  these  principles  contain  a  great  advance  made  by 
the  child  in  the  field  of  morality. 

Tlie  first  is  remarkable  for  the  noble  feeling  by  which  we 
recognize  that  our  highest  good  must  be  the  accordance 
of  our  will  with  the  will  of  others,  to  which  every  other  good 
must  be  subordinate^  The  second  is  also  most  remarkable, 
as  introducing  the  element  of  sacrifice  into  the  moral  order, 
and  the  virtue  of  fortitude  necessary  to  accomplish  it.  We 
shall  necessarily  return  more  than  once  to  the  momentous 

2  I  do  not  say  here  **  with  the  will  of  the  mother,"  but,  "  with  that  of  others," 
because  the  special  affection  which  binds  the  child  to  his  mother  is  a  purely  acci- 
dental thing,  drawn  from  the  treasure  of  his  heart,  in  which  lies  the  inclination  to 
universal  benevolence.  In  order  to  draw  out  this  benevolence,  and  bring  it  to  bear 
on  particular  objects,  the  latter  must  be  known  as  good  and  intelligent  beings,  and 
the  mother  has  the  opportunity  of  revealing  herself  as  such  to  the  child.  The 
latter,  who  is  ignorant  that  he  owes  his  being  to  her,  cannot  love  her  in  virtue  of 
her  maternity,  but  solely  as  the  good  and  intelligent  being  in  whose  hands  he  is, 
whom  he  knows,  and  whose  loving-kindness  he  feels.  He  would  attach  himself  in 
the  same  way  to  any  other  woman.  The  child,  then,  is  conscious  of  the  duty  of 
conforming  his  will  to  that  of  others,  when  he  feels  that  will  to  be  good,  and  it  is 
only  by  accident  that  he  applies  and  directs  this  principle  to  special  persons. 


250  ON    THE   IIULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

consequences  which  must  follow,  in  the  moral  world  of  the 
child,  from  two  such  grave  and  exalted  principles. 

Section  3.  —  Tdea  of  God. 

329.  An  Absolute  Being  comes  already  to  be  known  as 
necessary  in  the  second  order  of  cognitions  (nos.  181-182). 

To  the  baptized,  according  to  the  profound  doctrine  of 
Christianity,  is  given,  moreover,  the  feeling  of  this  Abso- 
lute Being,  the  perception  or  positive  knowledge  of  Him 
(no.  137). 

Let  us  first  consider  the  progress  of  our  natural  knowl- 
edge of  God :  we  will  add  afterwards  that  which  belongs 
to  supernatural  communication. 

Natural  knowledge  of  God  is  always  negative  and  ideal, ^ 
because  man  does  not  perceive  God  in  it,  but  only  reasons 
through  induction,  that,  beyond  all  finite  things,  there  must 
be  something  infinite^  although  what  that  infinite  may  be 
he  knows  not.^  Now,  such  cognition  as  this,  simple  as  it  is, 
is  yet  susceptible  of  successive  increase.  We  have  to  show 
what  this  increase  is,  by  seeking  the  form  in  which  such  a 
cognition  is  found  at  the  fifth  period  of  childhood,  or  the 
fourth  stage  of  his  intelligence,  at  which  we  have  now 
arrived. 

When  the  child  first  perceives  a  real  entity,  the  mother 
must  not  imagine  that  he  sees  any  limits  to  it :  for  him  that 
first  being  is  the  only  one,  the  all  of  being.     He  does  not. 


1  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  nature  of  this  knowledge  in  the  New  Essay, 
nos.  1085  and  foil.,  where  I  have  shown  that  ideality  is  the  principle  of  being 
and  reality  its  term  ;  so  that,  whenever  we  know  a  being  through  its  ideality  only, 
we  have  solely  that  knowledge  of  it  which  I  have  termed  ideal  negative  cognition ; 
and  when  we  know  it  through  our  perception  of  its  reality,  we  have  what  I 
have  termed  positive  cognition  of  it. 

2  The  mind  makes  this  induction  in  virtue  of  the  integrating  faculty  of  the 
understanding,  which  I  have  already  shown  to  be  the  source  of  negative  ideas. 
New  Essay  (no.  1454  n.)  and  nos.  181  and  J^U.  of  this  work. 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  THE   INFINITE.  251 

indeed,  feel  that  all,  but  he  supposes  it,  or,  at  all  events, 
does  not  deny  it,  in  the  entity  perceived.-^ 

Yet  his  sense  is  limited :  all  that  he  sees  and  feels  is 
surrounded  with  limitations.  The  division,  the  multiplicity 
of  beings,  are  there  to  contradict  his  thoughts  and  to  tell 
him  that  he  errs,  if  he  believes  them  to  be  the  all  of  being. 
His  mother's  words  finally  undeceive  him.  Not  only  do 
they  more  and  more  divide,  and,  as  it  were,  break  up  in  his 
thought  the  being  of  things,  but  with  the  solemn  word  6rocZ, 
which  he  hears  pronounced,  he  finally  comes  to  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  an  all  of  being,  and  that  it  is  none  of*  the 
things  which  have  yet  appeared  to  him.  This  is  the  first 
conception  of  a  God  distinct  from  nature  that  is  formed 
in  the  infant  mind. 

In  this  conception,  the  child  certainly  does  not  remain 
in  the  ideal :  he  affirms  a  reality ;  but  this  reality  has  not 
been  perceived  by  him ;  he  knows  not  what  it  is,  but  only 
that  it  fully  answers  to  the  universal  ideal  illuminating  his 


1  Some  of  the  German  philosophers  have  had  glimpses  of  this  truth,  that  the 
finite  in  the  mind  of  man  demands  the  infinite.  But,  1st,  they  started  from  the 
subject,  from  the  /,  as  the  primary  perception,  whereas  experience,  on  which  our 
theory  is  founded,  shows  that  the  /  is  perceived  rather  late,  and  long  after  man  has 
perceived  external  things  ;  2d,  starting  from  the  perception  of  the  /,  and  assum- 
ing that  it  cannot  take  place  without  the  perception,  at  the  same  time,  of  the 
world  and  of  God,  they  are  unable  to  give  a  reason  for  this  triple  perception, 
which  remains  in  their  system  an  isolated,  inexplicable  fact ;  3d,  to  say  that  the 
perception  of  the  finite  involves  that  of  the  infinite,  is  a  proposition  which,  if 
given  as  a  primary  fact,  is  inexplicable,  and  which  can  have  no  other  rational 
ground  than  the  universality  of  the  idea  of  being  illuminating  the  mind.  If  this 
is  admitted,  it  follows  that  the  supposed  triple  perception  of  our  philosophers  is 
falsely  assumed  to  be  the  first  human  cognition,  4th  and  lastly,  the  doctrine  of 
a  triple  perception  has  the  very  grave  defect  of  not  distinguishing  between  posi- 
tive cognition,  which  is  perception,  and  negative  cognition,  which  is  not  perception, 
but  a  simple  indicative  act  of  intelligence.  We,  on  the  contrary,  assert  that  the 
infant,  with  its  first  perception  of  the  limited  being  of  its  mother,  believes  and 
affirms  in  its  mind  (but  does  not  yet  perceive)  the  subsistence  of  a  something  to 
which  it  sets  no  limits  :  it  does  not  go  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite  ;  but  while  its 
senses  rest  on  the  finite,  its  mind  goes  forth  into  the  infinite.  —  See  New  Essay, 
nos.  1429  and  foil. 


252  ON   THE   RULING   PIUNCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

mind.  A  conception  of  this  kind  is  so  simple  that  it  admits 
of  no  analysis,  so  long  as  it  retains  this  form ;  but  it  very 
soon  advances  and  develops,  and  this  is  the  manner  of  its 
development :  — 

330.  The  child  perceives  nothing  of  the  divine  reality  ; 
hence  perception  cannot  complete  his  knowledge  of  God,  or 
give  him  the  material  for  that  process  of  analysis  and  syn- 
thesis by  which  the  human  mind  attains  its  knowledge  of 
natural  things.  Its  progress  in  this  knowledge  does,  never- 
theless, indirectly  assist  the  conception  of  the  divine,  for 
this  •reason,  that  the  more  we  learn  to  kiaow  of  natural  and 
finite  being,  the  more  we  know  of  universal  being,  and  thus 
in  some  manner  ascend  to  the  cognition  of  the  Absolute 
by  the  constant  removal  of  limitations.  The  Absolute  and 
relative,  in  fact,  are  necessarily  connected,  and,  therefore, 
the  more  we  know  of  relative  being,  the  more  we  know  of 
its  relation  to  the  Absolute,  and  we  may  form  a  cognition 
of  the  latter  consisting  precisely  of  those  relations.  It  is 
true  that,  if  I  remove  all  limits  to  the  perfections  I  see  in 
created  beings,  say  to  power,  wisdom,  goodness,  I  know 
nothing  of  what  they  thus  become.  I  have  not  the  faintest 
idea  of  w^hat  these  unlimited  perfections  will  be  transformed 
into ;  but,  be  their  unknown  transformation  what  it  may, 
I  yet  know  this,  that  I  shall  have  lost  nothing  of  them, 
that  I  shall  still  possess  all  the  good  of  them  inexpressibly, 
inconceivably  increased,  and  this  is  already  a  large  addi- 
tion to  my  knowledge,  although  it  consists  entirely  in  the 
relations  of  an  unknown  thing  to  the  known,  without  any 
further  perception  or  feeling  of  that  unknown  than  I  had 
before. 

The  child,  at  the  second  stage  of  cognition,  learns  to 
speak :  at  the  third,  the  name  of  God,  sounded  in  his  ears, 
makes  him  aware,  not  only  of  His  existence,  as  distinct  from 
that  of  nature,  but  he  places  in  God  himself  the  intelligence 


IDEA  OF   GOD,   HOW   REACHED.  253 

and  goodness  he  has  begun  to  recognize  in  his  mother  —  an 
absolute  goodness  and  intelligence,  to  which  he  already  gives 
infinite  admiratipn  and  affection,  soon  changed  into  adora- 
tion, if  he  is  aided  by  religious  instruction. 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  child,  directed  by  his  intel- 
ligent nature,  feels  intimately  the  respect  which  is  due  to  the 
will  of  others,  and  the  superiority  of  that  intelligent  will  to 
all  other  things,  feels  that  he  ought,  therefore,  to  give  up  all 
others,  rather  than  place  himself  in  disaccord  with  it.  Un- 
doubtedly, the  feeling  thus  shown  by  the  child  towards  the 
will  of  his  mother,  or  of  others  dear  to  him,  is  greatly  helped 
and  strengthened  by  his  ignorance,  as  yet,  of  the  limitations 
of  that  will,  and  the  greater  dignity  which  he  attributes  to 
it  beyond  what  it  really  has  ;  and  he  is  prompted  to  this  by 
his  contemplation  of  universal  being,  with  whose  greatness  he 
believes  at  first  the  real  things  he  perceives  to  correspond. 
But,  in  every  way  the  Divine  will  fully  satisfies  the  want  he 
feels  of  an  absolute,  complete,  and  universal  will,  and,  there- 
fore, he  is  entirely  disposed  to  conform  to  it ;  and,  as  soon  as 
he  can  understand  what  it  means,  he  will  accept  it  as  so 
natural,  just,  and  necessary,  that  it  will  never  occur  to  him 
to  ask  a  reason  why.  Rather,  he  will  show  eagerness  to 
know  what  is  the  will  of  God,  even  in  the  most  minute  things, 
if  only  the  natural  religion  in  his  heart  has  been  duly  cher- 
ished and  cultivated.  Thus,  at  this  early  age,  the  child's 
mind  is  inclined,  even  by  nature,  to  recognize  God  as  the 
supreme  legislator. 

331.  Christianity  unveils  to  us  a  mystery :  it  assures  us 
that  the  soul  of  the  child  undergoes,  through  baptism,  a  secret 
but  most  powerful  action,  which  raises  it  to  the  supernatural 
order,  and  places  it  in  communication  with  God.^  The 
effect  of  this,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  is  an  intimate 
feeling  of  the  reality  of  God.     This,  as  it  were,  colors  and 

1  See  note  of  Translator  to  n.  137. 


254  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

incarnates  the  natural  cognition  of  God,  making  it  positive, 
hastening  its  progress,  giving  it  the  life  by  which  it  becomes 
a  spring  of  action  in  man,  and  bears  fruit  in  the  most  sub- 
lime moral  development. 

Christian  parents  should  exult  in  this  divine  treasure  hid- 
den in  the  souls  of  their  children,  and  adore,  preserve,  and 
develop  it ;  finally,  they  ought  not  only  to  gain  help  by  the 
grace  of  the  sacraments,  but  also  by  that  which  they  may 
obtain  for  their  child  through  offering  him  to  the  Highest, 
praying  for  him,  using  the  sacred  offices  (sacramentali) ,  to 
which  is  attached  a  beneficent  virtue,  through  the  power  of 
the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  development  ^f  grace  is  worked  out  through  virtue 
and  knowledge.  As  regards  virtue,  it  is  the  love  which  should 
be  sown  and  cultivated  from  the  first  in  the  infant  soul.  As 
regards  knowledge,  it  is  the  knowledge  of  Christ  which  an- 
swers to  the  infusion  of  bsq^tismal  grace,  and  is  acquired 
through  the  word  of  God  himself.  The  child  at  that  age 
should  learn  to  know  Christ,  not  only  as  God  made  man, 
but  as  the  Master  of  men,  having  a  will  to  which  all  must 
submit  their  wills :  this  is  the  time  when  the  Gospel  can  be 
opened  up  to  the  youthful  intelligence. 

CHAPTER    H. 

THE  ACTIVE  FACULTIES  OF  THE  FOURTH  ORDER  OF  COGNITIONS. 

332.  We  pass  from  the  intellectual  development  of  the 
fourth  order  to  the  human  activity  which  corresponds  to  it. 
To  treat  this  question  fully,  we  should  speak  separately  of 
the  rational  and  the  animal  activity  of  the  child ;  but  this 
would  take  us  too  far,  without  any  immediate  advantage  to 
our  present  purpose.  We  shall,  then,  as  in  previous  sections, 
select  for  consideration  only  the  salient  points,  as  it  were,  of 
the  child's  activity,  the  characteristic  marks  and  traits  which 
should  be  specially  observed  by  the  educator. 


APPRECIATIVE   VOLITIONS. 


255 


ARTICLE   I. 

WITH  THE  FOURTH  ORDER  BEGIN  APPRECIATIVE  VOLITIONS. 

333.  Appreciative  volitions  are  those  which  arise  from 
the  comparison  of  two  objects,  whether  good  or  bad,  of 
which  we  value  one  more  or  less  than  the  other. 

We  have  already  seen  that  comparison  begins  only  in  the 
fourth  order  (nos.  302,  303)  ;  therefore,  only  at  that  stage 
can  the  will  perform  the  act  by  which  we  choose  between 
two  things  compared  together. 

It  is,  indeed,  possible  in  the  preceding  order,  i.  e.,  the 
third,  to  prize  objects  ;  for  that  does  not  involve  a  com- 
parison, but  not  to  appreciate  them,  which  requires  a  pref- 
erence and  antecedent  comparison. 


Acts  of  the  Intellect. 

Corresponding  Acts  of  Will. 

First 
Order. 

Second 
Order. 

Perception  of  subsistence. 

Affective  volition,  having  for  its  term 
the  whole  of  subsisting  being. 

Abstraction  of  the  sensible 
qualities   which    awaken 
interest. 

Affective  volition,  having  for  its  term 
solely  the  sensible  quality,  good  or 
bad  (abstracted,  that  is, exactly  marked 
off  from  the  other  indifferent  qualities 
of  the  entity  >. 

Third 
Order. 

Judgments  concerning  the 
qualities    of    objects,    or 
syntJiesiSj  by  which  it  is 
affirmed  that  a  given  in- 
teresting quality  exists  in 
a  given  subject. 

Prizing  volition,  having  for  its  term  the 
object  in  so  far  as  the  mind  recognizes 
in  it  the  interesting  quality,  and  thus 
estimates  it. 

Fourth 
Order. 

Comparison  of  two  objects 
judged    of,   by   which    a 
third  judgment  is  made, 
giving  the  preference  to 
one  over  the  other  —  ap- 
preciation. 

Appreciative  volition,  preference,  choice 
between  two  objects. 

256  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

If  we  consider  that,  in  the  second  order,  abstractions  are 
formed,  and  thus  become  the  objects  of  desire,  while  in  the 
first  order  only  existences  are  perceived,  which  alone,  there- 
fore, can  be  desired,  it  will  be  easy  to  establisli  and  mark  out 
the  corresponding  progress  of  the  will  in  those  four  orders, 
as  shown  in  the  preceding  table. 

ARTICLE    XL 

FREEDOM. 

334.  The  exercise  of  appreciative  volition  would  not  alone 
suffice  to  prove  the  child  to  be  in  possession  of  his  free  will. 
I  have  already  shown  that,  if  the  appreciation  and  conse- 
quent choice  regard  the  material  order  of  things,  or  even 
purely  intellectual  objects,  there  may  be  choice,  and  yet  not 
freedom.  The  latter  begins  to  manifest  itself  on  the  first 
occasion  on  which  man  is  called  upon  to  compare  the  moral 
order  with  the  inferior  orders  of  things,  and  for  the  first 
time  to  choose  between  his  duty  and  his  pleasure,  or  the 
satisfaction  of  some  casual  instinct.  (See  Anthropology^ 
nos.  543-566.) 

But  this  first  act  takes  place  precisely  at  the  fourth  order 
of  cognitions.  The  collision  between  the  things  which  at- 
tract him  and  his  sense  of  duty,  occurs  in  the  child  as  soon 
as  he  becomes  aware  of  a  positive  will  in  opposition  to  his 
natural  inclinations.  Now,  the  knowledge  of  this  will  comes 
to  him  in  the  fourth  order.  We  have  seen  how  high  he  holds 
it;  how  he  feels  that  it  is  something  far  above  all  other 
things,  and  how  the  respect  which  he  is  disposed  to  pay  to 
the  will  of  a  Being  that  knows  and  is  known  to  him,  is  so 
great  that,  if  for  any  motive,  under  the  influence  of  tempta- 
tion, he  prefers  to  it  any  other  good  whatsoever,  he  feels 
bitter  remorse,  and  cannot  live  without  returning  to  peace 
and  concord  with  that  will. 

From  want  of  observing  this  tendency  of  the  child's  na- 


FORCE   AND   MORAL   SUASION.  257 

ture,  Rousseau  was  led  into  a  miserable  and  unworthy 
judgment  of  human  nature,  maintaining  that,  at  first, 
force^  and  not  moral  means,  should  be  employed  to  control 
it,  —  the  idea  of  duty  being  too  far  above  the  infant's  capa- 
city. How  entirely  is  this  system  belied  by  facts  !  How 
utterly  has  the  presumption  of  sophists  dehumanized  hu- 
manity !  It  is  time  that  the  present  age  should  reconquer, 
step  by  step,  the  dignity  which  has  been  lost,  and  this  it  is 
doing  from  day  to  day,  by  the  victorious  power  given  to  the 
truth  through  accurate  observation  of  the  facts  of  human 
nature.  It  is  such  impartial  observation  that  reveals  to  us 
in  the  child  this  wonderful  and  comforting  truth,  that  he 
obeys  moral  duty  sooner  than  he  obeys  force  ;  he  obeys 
the  former  before  he  has  learned  to  know  the  latter. 
Once  more,  let  us  look  at  this  matter  through  the  wise 
and  clear-sighted  eyes  of  a  mother,  who  read  accurately 
her  children's  minds,  and  observed  and  understood  them 
thoroughly. 

''More  attentive  observation,"  says  Mme.  Guizot,  speak- 
ing of  Rousseau,  "  would  have  taught  him  that  moral  neces- 
sity, i.  e.,  duty,  which  is  a  portion  of  our  nature,  born  with 
us,  is  felt  by  children  long  before  physical  necessity,  the 
knowledge  of  which  comes  from  without,  through  a  variety 
of  experiences  and  of  comparisons,  impossible  for  the  child 
till  long  after  a  natural  instinct  has  made  him  feel  the  moral 
necessity  of  obedience.  There  is  not  a  nurse  who  does  not 
know  that  the  way  to  make  a  child  resist  is  to  try  to  take 
from  him  by  force  what  he  holds  in  his  hand,  whereas  a 
sign  with  which  he  is  already  familiar  is  sometimes  enough 
to  make  him  let  it  go ;  and  if  he  still  resists,  he  is  strug- 
gling, though  feebly,  against  the  pricks  of  his  own  convic- 
tion ;  his  hesitation  is  seen  in  his  countenance  ;  he  seems  to 
be  looking  for  a  cessation  of  the  will  which  displeases  him, 
and  thus  to  be  restored  to  freedom.     But  when,  at  last,  it  is 


258  ON   THE   BULING  PRINCIPLE   OE   METHOD. 

more  strongly  pronounced  ;  when,  in  order  to  make  him  obey, 
an  expression  of  displeasure  has  been  added  to  that  of  will, 
he  yields  with  a  look  of  discomposure  which  is  neither 
anger  nor  fear,  but  the  disturbing  sense  of  a  fault.  The 
small  features  contract,  but  not  violently ;  he  looks  at  you  ; 
he  is  not  yet  crying :  his  whole  being  is  hanging  in  suspense 
between  the  tears  ready  to  start  and  the  expectation  of  the 
inward  smile  which  may  quickly  return  and  bring  back 
brightness  to  the  poor  little  face,  scarcely  yet  formed,  and 
yet  sufficient  to  reveal  a  soul."^ 

The  child,  then,  when  it  has  arrived  at  this  stage  of 
intelligence,  chooses  between  good  and  evil,  —  enters  into 
possession  of  his  freedom. 

335.  From  this  first  appearance  of  free  action  we  must 
infer  a  certain  degree  of  moral  strength  with  which  the 
human  being,  who  takes  the  side  of  moral  goodness,  re- 
sists and  overcomes  the  opposing  temptations.  This  moral 
strength,  which  we  have  termed  practical  force ^  at  first  shows 
itself  only  by  snatches,  and  often  gives  way  when  the  trial  is 
severe ;  but  its  strength  increases,  or  else  finds  help  and 
support  on  which  to  rest,  thereby  testifying  to  a  capacity 
for  progress,  and  to  a  certain  development  in  the  mind  of 
the  child. 

ARTICLE    HI. 

HOW  BELIEF  AND  DOCILITY    NATURALLY  INCREASE  IN  THE  CHILD. 

336.  If  the  belief  and  docility  of  the  child  were  always 
fostered  by  false  and  unreasonable  teaching,  or  teaching  the 
reason  of  which  he  is  incapable  of  understanding,  his  bud- 
ding virtue  might  easily  be  suppressed  in  the  cradle.  An 
inward  conflict  of  the  saddest  and  most  painful  kind  would 
arise  in  his  mind.  That  external  will  which  had  appeared 
to  him  as  something  divine,  worthy  of  infinite  reverence, 
would  be  changed  into  something  mysterious,  inexplicable, 

1  Lett.  VIII. 


BELIEF   AND   DOCILITY.  259 

of  inconceivable  malignity.  Utterly  confused  from  the  first, 
not  knowing  whether  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  nature  reveal- 
ing to  him,  in  the  first  will  he  feels,  a  supreme  dignity,  or,  to 
his  own  experience,  which  shows  it  to  be  blind  and  lawless, 
he  would  be  led  to  moral  hopelessness  and  the  depravation 
of  his  own  feelings.  Providence,  however,  has  not  per- 
mitted that  those  to  whom  the  bringing  up  of  children  is 
intrusted  should  be  wholly  bad  or  wholly  unreasonable. 
Whatever  in  them  is  orderly,  reasonable,  kind,  forms  the 
beneficent  element  which  strengthens  in  the  child  those  two 
earliest  seeds  of  virtue  deposited  in  him  by  nature,  —  I  mean 
belief  and  docility. 

The  child  becomes  more  respectful  to  those  in  charge  of 
him,  trusts  them  more,  is  more  inclined  to  obedience,  the 
more  he  can  see  the  truth  and  the  use  of  what  he  is  told  or 
commanded. 

The  best  educator  will,  then,  be  he  who  best  knows  how  to 
strengthen  in  his  pupil  the  habits  of  belief  and  docility, 
whose  words,  narratives,  and  commands  have  most  of  the 
truths  which  can  be  understood  by  the  child,  and  from  which 
he  can  draw  inferences,  and  most  of  the  utility  which  he  can 
observe  and  try  for  himself. 

337.  In  fact,  when  the  child  has  formed  a  belief  which  ne 
finds  to  be  true,  and  has  drawn  inferences  from  it,  he  becomes 
more  docile,  and  is  anxious  to  learn  more  from  his  teachers  ; 
for  he  has  found  that  he  owes  all  he  knows  to  having  be- 
lieved them  in  the  first  instance.  This  fact  has  been  already 
noted:  ''As  his  (the  child's)  knowledge  is  based  on  the 
teaching  he  has  received,  from  the  moment  he  becomes  in- 
terested in  what  he  has  learned,  he  feels  also  the  need  of 
believing  what  he  is  taught,  and  finds  in  the  belief  already 
accepted  the  foundation  of  new  ones.  We  believe  because  we 
have  believed,  and  because  the  authority  to  which  we  have 
yielded  our  belief  appears  to  us  to  have  the  same  right  to 


260  ON   THE    KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

the  same  belief  each  time  that  what  it  proposes  to  us  to 
believe  is  not  more  incredible  than  that  of  which  it  has 
already  persuaded  us  ;  and,  without  examining  the  motive 
of  our  previous  adhesion,  we  make  the  latter  the  motive  of 
our  subsequent  one."^ 

ARTICLE    IV. 

THE  DESIBE  TO  INFLUENCE  OTHERS. 

338.  Not  even  the  wise  adaptation  of  lessons  and  com- 
mands, or  the  child's  tendency  to  belief,  strengthened  by 
love  of  the  knowledge  gained  through  it  and  the  sense  of 
advantages  derived  from  docility,  can,  however,  prevent  the 
will  of  the  teacher  from  frequently  coming  into  perilous 
collision  with  the  lower  propensities  of  the  child. 

At  first,  when  the  child  finds  himself  in  this  painful  conflict, 
and  yet  clings  to  what  he  feels  to  be  his  duty,  namely,  ad- 
herence to  the  will  of  others  at  any  sacrifice,  so  long  as  that 
will  is  present  to  his  mind,  he  cannot  resist  it  without  the 
bitterest  remorse.  But,  when  the  strength  of  the  temptation 
and  the  attraction  of  the  forbidden  thing  take  away  his 
attention  entirely  from  the  will  which  is  his  law,  and,  as  it 
were,  hide  it  from  him  for  the  time,  so  that  he  can  no  longer 
see  it,  he  is  easily  drawn  away,  and  then  his  fall  is  certain. 
That  moment  of  darkness  may  be  instantaneous  only,  and 
is  often  followed  almost  immediately  by  the  returning  per- 
ception of  the  law,  and  by  the  remorse  which  he  tries,  in 
vain,  to  hide  and  suppress. 

The  child,  however,  does  his  utmost  to  gratify  his  desire, 
and  yet  avoid  the  terrible  misfortune  of  acting  against  the 
will  of  others.  Hence,  while  at  first  he  inclines  to  conform 
his  own  will  to  theirs,  later  on,  when  passion  wakes  up,  and 
the  internal  conflict  begins,  he  strives  to  win  over  their  will 
to  his,  seeking  in  one  way  or  another  to  preserve  the  unity 

1  Mad.  Guizot,  Lett.  IX. 


FOURTH  ORDER  OF  COGNITIONS.  261 

of  the   two,  which   he   shrinks   from   destroying,    however 
strongly  tempted  to  do  so. 

This,  then,  is  the  age  at  which  children  begin  to  manifest 
the  intense  desire  they  have  to  influence  the  will  of  others, 
to  gratify  which  they  early  display  such  marvellous  dexterity, 
such  wonderful  quickness  and  penetration.^ 

CHAPTER    III. 

INSTRUCTION   ADAPTED   TO    THE    FOURTH   ORDER    OF    COGNITIONS. 

ARTICLE    I. 

HOW  LANGUAGE  SHOULD  BE  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  ALL  INSTRUCTION  OF 
THE  YOUNG. 

339.  In  speaking,  now,  of  the  instruction  adapted  to  the 
fourth  order  of  cognitions,  I  shall  not  repeat  what  I  have 
said  in  treating  of  the  other  orders,  much  of  which  applies 
also  to  this  and  the  following  ones.  I  shall  rather,  follow- 
ing the  same  method  as  heretofore,  touch,  in  connection  with 
this  order,  on  certain  principles  of  teaching,  which  should  be 
borne  in  mind  through  each  of  the  succeeding  ones.  It  is 
in  this  order  that  their  necessity  first  makes  itself  felt, 
although  it  becomes  more  and  more  apparent  in  those  that 
follow. 

One  of  the  fundamental  principles  which  should  govern 
the  instruction  given  from  first  to  last,  is  to  consider  lan- 
guage as  the  universal  instrument  provided  by  nature  for  the 
intellectual  development  of  man,  and,  therefore,  to  make  the 
most  careful  effort  to  make  sure  that  this  noble  instrument 
shall  fulfil  its  purpose  ;  that  words  and  thoughts  shall  be 
accurately  connected ;  that  man,  in  short,  shall  become  more 
and  more  versed  in  language,  but  so  that  his  progress  in  that 
shall  also  be  a  true  progress  in  ideas  and  in  knowledge. 

1  To  sum  up  :  To  the  first  order  of  coj^iitions  corresponds  benevolence  towards 
the  person  known  ;  to  the  second,  benevolence  towards  the  will  of  that  person, 
made  known  through  speech  ;  to  the  third,  the  conforming  of  the  will  to  that  of 
others ;  to  the  fourth,  the  endeavor  to  bend  that  of  others  to  the  child's  own. 


262  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

This  great  principle  was  known  to  antiquity  ;  it  has  been 
proclaimed  in  modern  times,  and  in  our  Italy  ;  but  it  has  not 
yet  been  reduced  to  practice  with  the  care  and  perseverance 
which  it  deserves. 

One  of  those  who,  in  our  own  country,  has  best  understood 
its  importance,  Taverna,  advocating  it  in  an  address  he 
delivered  in  Piacenza,  affirms  justly  that  ''words  have  no 
authority  and  no  office,  if  we  divide  them  from  things,  nor 
can  things  have  the  light  thrown  on  them  by  which  the 
mind  distinguishes,  orders,  and  groups  them,  and  acquires 
the  power  to  recall  them,  if  they  are  detached  and  set  apart 
from  words."  Further  on,  he  adds:  "This  individual  con- 
junction of  the  thoughts,  affections,  and  actions  of  man,  and 
of  every  natural  object  with  language,  was  truly  felt  by 
those  early  sages,  who,  knowing  that  the  language  of  a 
people  includes  within  itself  all  the  elements  of  their  knowl- 
edge, judged  that  to  teach  it  to  children  was  to  lay  down 
in  their  minds  and  engrave  there  a  universal  basis  of 
knowledge."^ 

340.  We  have  seen  that  the  infant,  prior  to  gaining  the 
power  of  speech,  is  tied  down  to  subsisting  things.  He 
cannot  detach  himself  from  them  in  thought,  and  take  his 
flight  through  the  vast  regions  of  abstraction.  The  deeper 
we  penetrate  into  this  matter,  the  more  do  we  find  that  all 
our  intellectual  errors,  all  the  pernicious  theories,  the  decep- 
tive sophistries  by  which  individuals  and  nations  have  been 

1  Prolusione  alle  Lezioni  di  Storia  recitate  in  Piacenza,  il  15  Febbrieo  1811, 
nella  sala  del  Collegio  di  S.  Pietro.  —  Operette  of  Taverna,  collected  by  Silvestri, 
Milan,  1830.  Taverna  returned  to  the  same  ^oint  in  various  places  of  those  pre- 
cious Operette,  in  one  of  which  he  says:  ''Looking  more  deeply  into  this  matter, 
I  will  reply  that,  the  child  having  the  desire  to  discern  and  divide  things,  and  to 
mark  them  with  a  sign,  these  single  words  are  exactly  adapted  to  his  use.  There- 
fore, he  never  ceases  to  ask  how  this  or  that  thing  is  called,  because,  until  he  has 
the  name,  he  seems  to  himself  to  know  nothing,  but  with  it  to  know  everything ; 
and  so  he  goes  on  inquiring  as  if  he  would  scour  for  himself  all  the  realms  of 
nature.  In  teaching  words  to  children,  then,  we  are  meeting  their  own  wishes." 
{Prime  Letture,  Dedica.) 


INSTRUCTION    IN   LANGUAGE.  263 

deluded,  can  be  traced  to  the  vague  and  improper  use  of 
words.  By  a  thorough  knowledge  of  language,  then,  the 
child  can  be  taught  propriety  of  speech,  not  for  ornament, 
but  for  accuracy,  truth,  and  utility ;  and  this  is  the  best 
means  of  preserving  him  from  being  dazzled  or  deceived 
by  illusions,  and  making  him  a  man  of  exquisite  dis- 
cernment and  acute  logical  faculty,  with  accurate,  well- 
grounded  knowledge.  If  we  look  at  this  matter  in  all  its 
bearings,  it  will  be  seen  that  this  is  no  exaggeration  of  its 
importance. 

But,  unfortunately,  the  necessary  books  for  our  purpose  do 
not  yet  exist :  we  do  not  yet  possess  a  vocabulary  contain- 
ing the  larger  propriety  of  words,  which  would  necessarily 
be  in  a  certain  way  an  encyclopedia  of  knowledge.  I  say 
the  larger  propriety^  because  there  is  a  lesser  one,  that  of 
dialects  and  of  short,  rather  than  long,  periods  of  time. 
The  larger  propriety  I  speak  of  is  more  constant ;  it  is  not 
the  work  of  a  small  population,  or  of  passing  custom,  but 
of  national,  and  sometimes  universal,  human  usage,  lasting 
through  centuries,  and  often  surviving  by  many  centuries,  in 
the  living  roots  of  words,  the  languages  which  have  them- 
selves perished.^ 

ARTICLE    II. 

EXERCISE  OF  EXTERNAL  ACTIVITY,   OF  IMAGINATION,   MEMORY,  AND  THE 
AFFECTIONS. 

341.  The  exercises  of  external  activity,  according  to  the 
rules  we  have  given  (no.  290),  should  be  continued  in  the 
fourth  and  following  orders,  and  also  the  teaching  by  pictures 

1  The  celebrated  saying  of  Horace  {De  Arte  Poet,  72),  which  attributes  to  usage 
t'ae  choice,  the  reason,  and  the  form  of  expression,  is  undoubtedly  true;  but  in 
how  many  different  ways  may  we  not  understand  it  ?  —  I  should  wish,  therefore, 
to  add  to  it,  that  usage  has  the  greater  authority  the  more  ancient  it  is,  and  the 
larger  the  number,  whether  of  persons  or  peoples,  tliat  have  sanctioned  it ;  also,  that 
the  usage  of  a  day  should  not  prevail  over  that  of  centuries,  and  that  the  words  of 
ancient  origin,  though  they  may  have  little  currency  at  the  moment,  yet  belong  to 
usage,  rather  than  those  which  are  coined  from  day  to  day,  and  from  day  to  day 
modified  and  given  up.  The  former  constitutes  the  larger,  and  fashion  the  lesser^ 
propriety  of  language. 


264  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

and  representations  of  things.  It  would  be  a  great  work, 
worthy  of  a  philosopher  and  a  philanthropist,  to  form  a  col- 
lection of  pictorial  and  dramatic  representations  adapted 
to  the  gradual  development  of  the  infant  mind. 

The  exercises  to  which  we  have  given  the  name  of  oral 
should  also  be  continued,  and  to  them  should  be  added 
exercises  of  memory.  The  latter  may  begin  with  short 
moral  precepts,  expressing  only  the  morality  proportioned 
to  the  child's  understanding,  i.  e.,  that  which  contains  no 
moral  formulas  above  the  order  of  cognitions  to  which  he 
has  attained,  or  at  most  only  those  of  the  order  immediately 
above.  A  collection  of  such  precepts  duly  arranged  according 
to  the  grades  of  cognitions,  which  should  constitute  so  many 
grades  of  instruction,  is  also  a  much  needed  and  necessary 
work.  A  similarly  arranged  collection  of  poetry  would  be 
equally  useful  in  exercising  the  memory  of  children. 

342.  The  help  of  music  should  not  be  sought  as  a  mere 
pleasure  to  the  sense.  The  child  himself,  frivolous  as  he 
seems,  and  swayed  by  his  sensations,  requires  more  than 
that.  He  is  intelligent,  and  seeks  first  intelligence  in  all 
things,  even  in  his  sensations,  and  afterwards  emotion  and 
delight  of  the  purest  kind  which  spring  from  them.  For 
this  reason,  I  firmly  believe  that  music  could  be  made  a 
most  useful  instrument  of  education,  if  applied  by  the 
teacher  to  touch  with  emotion  those  moral  precepts  and 
moral  representations  which  the  child  already  knows  and 
understands.  In  this  way  music,  instead  of  being  meaning- 
less or  predominating  over  thought,  would  become  the  hand- 
maid of  language  already  communicated  to  him,  and  he 
would  listen  to  it,  as  to  a  sweet  and  tender  interpreter  of 
the  noblest  conceptions  his  soul  has  yet  attained,  but 
which  hitherto  have  lain  there  without  life  or  color. 

But  who  shall  find  such  music  as  that  ?  Who  shall  use  it 
with  the  sobriety,  the  self-sacrificing  courage,  to  put  into  it 


USE   OF   MUSIC.  265 

neither  the  beauty  wliieh  is  purely  sensual,  nor  the  beauty 
above  the  child's  comprehension?  Who  shall  understand 
and  value  music  expressing  only  childish  thoughts,  clothed 
in  childish  words?  What  security  have  I,  that  even  these 
suggestions  of  mine  may  not  be  misunderstood,  and  that  the 
attempt  to  put  them  in  practice  may  not  lead  to  abuse  ?^ 

ARTICLE    III. 
ORAL  EXERCISES  IN  THIS  PERIOD. 

343.  Oral  exercises  should  be  continued  in  this  period 
as  a  sort  of  prelude  to  the  teaching  of  reading  and  writing, 
being  made  more  and  more  an  exercise  of  intelligence. 

As,  in  the  preceding  period,  the  exercises  turned  upon 
nouns  and  verbs,  they  should  now  introduce  particles,  or  the 
connection  of  nouns  with  each  other,  of  verbs  with  each 
other,  and  of  nouns  with  verbs.  This  is,  in  fact,  teach- 
ing to  speak,  if  properly  done.  There  are  ideas  and 
thoughts  which,  although  within  the.  reach  of  the  childish 
understanding,  the  child  finds  extreme  difficulty  in  express- 
ing. We  must  first  point  out  to  him  the  thought  to  be 
expressed,  and  then  lead  him  to  find  the  most  fitting  and 
effectual  way  of  giving  it  utterance. 

But,  for  the  success  of  these  exercises  a  book  is  wanted, 
in  which  some  expert  should  collect  a  number  of  thoughts 
adapted  to  each  order  of  cognitions,  and  also  the  fitting 
mode  of  expressing  them.  With  such  a  book,  it  would  be 
easy  to  lead  the  child  gradually  from  the  thoughts  and  the 

1  Note  of  Translator. — All  that  Rosmini  mentions  in  this  article,  as  desid- 
erata, has  been  long  since  supplied,  with  more  or  less  success,  by  the  infant 
school  system,  and  far  more  efficiently  by  Froebel's  Kindergarten  system,  every 
part  of  which  is  directed  to  the  gradual  development  of  the  child's  whole 
nature.  Froebel's  Mutter-  und  Kose-Lieder,  of  which  more  than  one  translation 
has  been  made  into  English,  are  the  complete  realization  of  Rosmini's  ideal  of 
music  for  children,  while  his  games  and  story-telling  supply  the  active  dramatic 
element  which  Rosmini,  with  the  same  deep  insight  into  child-nature,  wished  to 
add  to  the  passive  element  of  pictorial  representation. 


266  ON   THE    RULING    PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

mode  of  expression  proper  to  a  lower  order  of  cognition 
to  those  proper  to  the  higher  orders.  I  include  expression 
as  well  as  thought,  for  the  same  thought  may  be  variously 
expressed,  and  yet  always  fitly,  —  adapted,  that  is,  to  one 
order  of  cognitions,  and  not  to  another. 

Certain  constructions  are  difficult  for  children,  and  why? 
Because  they  belong  to  an  order  of  ideas  which  is  beyond 
them.  The  wise  man  who  should  compose  the  book  we 
want,  would  thus  have  to  classify  according  to  age  the 
constructions  and  different  forms  of  expression,  and  the 
child  would  have  to  be  taught  from  these  by  degrees.^ 

How  greatly  would  the  child's  power  of  expressing  him- 
self properly  be  thus  increased !  How  would  the  facility  of 
thinking  increase  with  his  skill  in  the  use  of  language,  the 
universal  means  of  intellectual  development !  How  much 
time  would  be  saved  in  school !  With  what  ease  will  the 
child  later  on  write  down  his  thoughts  who  has  learned  to 
speak  them  in  appropriate  and  fitting  words  ! 

ARTICLE    IV. 
INSTRUCTION  IN  READING  AND  WRITING. 

344.  At  this  period  should  also  begin  the  teaching  to  read 
and  write. 

1  The  language  of  children  is  full  of  ellipses.  Mad.  de  Saussure  has  well 
observed  this.  "  Ainsi,  je  suppose,"'  she  says,  "  qu'on  dise  a  I'enfant,  en  lui  tend- 
ant  la  main  :  '  Voulez-vous  venir  au  jardin  avec  moi  ? '  II  repetera,  '  Oui,  oui, 
venir  au  jardin  avec  moi!'  le  geste  et  le  niot  de  jardin  ayant  suffi.  a  son  intelli- 
gence. Si  au  contraire  on  lui  disait  en  faisant  signe  de  le  repousser  :  '  J'irai  au 
jardin  sans  vous,'  il  repeterait  long-temps  en  se  lamentant  :  pas  sans  vous,  pas 
sans  vous.'  On  voit  par  la  que  tout  en  comprenant  fort  bien  la  phrase  entiere, 
il  n'attribue  pas  un  sens  h,  chaque  mot."  (Liv.  II.  c.  vi.)  The  peoples  of  an- 
tiquity, who  always  exhibit  the  phenomena  of  childhood,  are  also  full  of  ellipses 
and  reticences.  (See  further  observations  in  the  Storla  Comparativa  e  Critica  de' 
Sistemi  morali,  Cap.  V.  Art.  vii.)  Now,  the  exercises  we  are  proposing  should 
serve,  be  it  remembered,  to  make  the  child  express  distinctly  all  the  ideas  in  a 
sentence,  even  those  which,  in  his  natural  language,  he  would  leave  unuttered, 
and  this  is  their  principal  advantage.  But  the  expression  of  the  ideas  should 
still  be  his  own,  that  is,  on  the  same  level  as  his  understanding. 


INSTRUCTION   IN   READING   AND   WRITING.  267 

Uttered  words,  languages,  are  the  signs  of  ideas ;  written 
words,  writing,  are  tiie  signs  of  words. ^ 

Writing  tlius  belongs  to  the  order  of  cognitions  next  above 
that  of  language,  which  is  the  third.  But  we  have  observed 
that  language  itself  embraces  more  than  one  order  in  its 
various  parts,  and  tliat  verbs,  which  are  among  the  most 
important,  are  not  understood  before  the  third  order  is 
reached.  The  child  must  then  be  allowed  time  to  get  a 
sufficient  understanding  of  the  words  spoken,  and  I  should 
advise  deferring  teaching  him  to  read  till  he  is  well  ad- 
vanced in  the  fourth  intellectual  order,  which  generally 
corresponds  with  the,  second  half  of  the  third  year. 

This  interval,  before  we  begin  to  teach  him  his  letters,  may 
be  most  usefully  employed  in  the  oral  exercises  which  will 
make  him  perfect  in  the  mechanism  of  pronunciation,  give 
him  a  larger  vocabulary,  and,  above  all,  make  him  exercise 
his  understanding,  after  which  he  will  begin  learning  to  read 
and  write  fully  prepared  and  capable  of  rapid  progress. 

Nevertheless,  this  learning  to  read  and  write  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  should  always  go  together,  should  not  be  hurried 
on,  but  should  rather  proceed  slowly,  seeing  that  our  object, 
which  should  never  be  lost  sight  of,  is  not  to  teach  reading 
and  writing  alone,  but,  with  these,  many  other  things  much 
higher  and  more  important.  It  should  be  remembered,  also, 
that  no  teaching  should  be  simply  mechanical,  but  that  it 
should  always  tend  to  exercise  all  the  child's  faculties  and 
to  be  a  moral  training  besides.  These  principles  have  been 
loudly  proclaimed  in  Italy  by  men  who  are  an  honor  to  her, 
for  their  goodness  of  heart  and  elevation  of  mind.^ 

1  It  is  evident  that  we  are  speaking  here  of  the  mechanical  process  of  writing. 
The  writing  which  is  the  immediate  sign  of  thought  should  rather  be  called 
language  than  writing. 

2  The  Abbe  Taverna  defends  as  follows  the  method  he  prescribes  of  detaining 
children  a  long  time  over  the  study  of  words  :  "  They  (the  children  thus  taught) 
are  acquainted  with  very  few  of  the  relations  existmg  between  the  many  objects 


268  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

I  think  that  reading  and  writing  may  most  conveniently 
be  taught  together,  or  alternately,  as  two  parts  of  the 
same  study,  rather  than  as  two  separate  studies.  Both 
belong,  in  fact,  to  the  same  order  of  cognitions ;  for  to 
write  is  only  to  add  the  action  of  the  hand  to  draw  the 
characters  which,  being   already   known,    require   no   fresh 

they  observe  ;  but  they  have  in  their  hands  the  instrument  and  the  method 
whereby  to  discover  them  —  I  mean  language;  because  care  has  been  taken  not 
to  lay  on  their  memory  an  idea  without  the  word  proper  to  it,  and  the  same 
care  has  been  used  not  to  teach  them  words  to  which  they  cannot  attach  the 
corresponding  idea,  and  the  construction  of  language  is  directed  to  express  by 
signs  the  relations  which  exist  between  ideas,  and,  therefore,  between  the  things 
which  awaken  ideas.  In  this  way  they  will  acquire  the  habit  of  neither  uttering 
nor  hearing  words  without  knowing  or  inquiring  their  meaning ;  they  will 
accept  only  such  ideas  as  they  find  included  in  tfeose  they  already  possess,  or 
in  the  new  objects  offered  to  their  senses.  Their  ignorance  will  appear  very 
great;  but  be  proud  of  it,  all  you  enlightened  teachers;  for  equally  great  is  already 
their  desire  for  knowledge.  This  is  the  ignorance  in  which  nature  long  detains 
us  for  our  good.  The  pupils  of  pedants  will  have  more  words,  but  have  less 
knowledge,  and  will  find,  perhaps,  insuperable  obstacles  in  the  way  of  acquiring 
more.  In  yours,  on  the  contrary,  good  sense  is  already  present,  that  intellectual 
habit  which  is  early  formed  in  children,  when  they  are  guided,  not  by  authority, 
but  by  the  constant  and  uniform  testimony  of  their  senses  ;  a  habit  which,  in 
the  course  of  their  lives,  will  guide  them  into  the  path  of  truth,  will  teach  them 
to  distinguish  the  ideas  of  which  the  objects  exist,  from  those  of  which  the 
objects  either  do  not  exist  or  are  not  known,  to  distinguish  in  everything,  if 
not  the  true  from  the  false,  at  least  the  line  which  parts  the  known  from  the 
unknown."  Further  on,  he  says  :  ''It  is  true  that  the  language  of  such  children 
will  be  scanty,  but  only  because  it  will  be  exactly  determined.  They  will  soon 
be  able  to  use  it  in  forming  analyses  and  combinations,  and  for  comparison, 
abstraction,  and  generalization,  etc.  They  will  not  be  great  talkers,  because 
accustomed  to  speak  only  of  what  they  want  and  understand.  The  answers  of 
Sparta's  children  were  ready  and  short,  because  their  parents' desired  to  have 
from  them  only  the  words  necessary  to  express  what  they  wanted.  We  need 
not  fear  that  they  will  become  used  to  taciturnity,  and  hence  that  they  will  not 
find  expressions  at  need.  Let  them  be  left  a  good  deal  to  themselves,  to  their 
own  free  activity  ;  their  imaginations  will  extend  the  limits  of  their  language. 
Childhood  finds  relations  of  similarity  between  the  m.ost  dissimilar  things. 
Every  child  is  a  coachman ;  his  sticks  are  his  horses,  the  chairs  a  carriage. 
The  poorer  his  language,  the  more  is  the  human  being  driven,  by  the  desire  to 
express  his  thoughts,  to  find  new  combinations.  The  greater  our  difficulty  in 
expressing  what  we  feel,  the  more  is  our  attention  driven  inwards,  and  the  more 
entirely  do  our  thoughts  become  our  own.  The  most  truly  original  poets  ap- 
peared when  language  was  poorest."  —  Novelle  Morali  e  liacconti  storici.  Discorso 
preliminare. 


READING  AND   WRITING.  269 

learniDg.  It  is  an  external  action,  which  is  all  the  better 
joined  to  the  intellectual  action  that  both  are  united  almost 
indivisibly  by  Nature  herself.  Thus,  if,  after  showing  a 
child  the  letter  a,  and  teaching  him  its  sound,  I  make  him 
draw  its  form  with  his  own  hand,  he  will  never  forget  it 
again,  for,  as  Rousseau  observed:  "Children  forget  easily 
what  they  have  said  or  what  is  said  to  them,  but  not  what 
they  have  done  or  what  has  been  done  to  them."  The 
action,  then,  the  making  them  do  a  thing,  is  the  best  means 
of  teaching  it  and  fixing  it  in  their  memory. 

345.  But  in  reading,  as  in  writing,  we  must,  above  all 
things,  graduate  our  teaching,  and  both  parts  of  it  must 
be  kept  constantly  in  view,  i,  e.,  the  mechanical  and  the 
intellectual,  both  also  being  duly  applied  in  aid  of  moral 
progress. 

It  is  evident  that,  as  language  serves  admirably  to  ana- 
lyze the  discourse  of  thought^  so  reading  serves  to  analyze 
the  words  ^  decomposing  them  into  the  elementary  sounds 
of  which  they  consist ;  and,  finally,  writing  serves  to  ana- 
lyze the  letters  themselves,  the  elements  of  words,  calling 
attention  to  each  part  of  which  the  letters  are  composed. 
There  is,  therefore,  a  progressive  analysis  to  be  made,  of 
which  a  wise  teacher  will  know  how  to  avail  himself. 

There  is,  also,  a  different  direction  given  to  attention. 
In  mere  speaking,  our  attention  ends  with  the  thought  to  be 
expressed,  and  the  signs  of  the  thought  composing  language 
receive  only  a  slight  and  relative  attention ;  but  in  reading, 
attention  is  directed  to  the  sound  of  words  ;  the  printed 
characters  we  look  at  arrest  our  attention  only  for  the 
moment  necessary  to  make  them  the  starting-point,  as  it 
were,  for  reaching  its  real  object,  the  sound  of  the  words. 
Finally,  in  writing,  attention  is  fixed  on  the  letters,  the 
forms,  of  which  we  have  to  draw  a  copy  with  the  hand,  and 
which  become  the  terms  of  our  action.     Thus  we  find  the 


270  ON   THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

terms  of  our  intellectual  action,  wherever  attention  is  arrested 
and  fixed,  wherever  it  throws  its  light,  leaving  the  rest  in 
darkness,  like  a  torch  borne  swiftly  along,  lighting  up  only 
for  an  instant  each  spot  it  passes  over.  This  law  of  humai? 
attention  should  also  be  carefully  noted  by  the  teacher ;  for, 
duly  considered,  it  gives  him  the  means  of  directing  anO 
regulating  the  child's  attention  at  his  pleasure. 

We  want,  then,  a  method  of  teaching  reading  and  writing 
together,  given  in  one  book  and  duly  graduated.  This  is 
another  task  for  those  who  cultivate  the  great  art  of  educa- 
tion, toward  the  accomplishment  of  which,  however,  noble 
attempts  have  already  been  made. 

ARTICLE   V. 

ARITHMETIC. 

346.  A  similar  book  should  be  composed  to  give  children 
graduated  teaching  in  arithmetic.  For  example  :  we  have 
seen  that  the  child,  when  he  has  reached  the  fourth  order 
of  cognitions,  can  form  a  distinct  idea  of  the  number  three. 
Hence,  as  the  arithmetic  of  the  previous  periods  should  stop 
at  teaching  the  properties  of  the  numbers  one  and  two,  that . 
of  the  present  period  should  be  confined  to  teaching  the 
relative  properties  of  one,  two,  and  three,  and  their  various 
combinations,  expressing  the  latter  so  as  at  first  to  bring 
out  only  the  relations  between  those  three  simple  numbers, 
and,  later  on,  those  between  their  various  combinations. 

ARTICLE   VI. 

UNIFICATION  OF  IDEAS  AND  THOUGHTS. 

347.  Besides  the  forms  of  knowledge  already  described, 
as  fit  to  be  imparted  to  a  child  of  the  age  we  are  considering, 
it  is  time  now  to  introduce  a  right  order  into  his  knowledge. 
This  attempt  to  co-ordinate  the  things  he  knows  should 
begin  as  soon  as  his  mind  is  capable  of  admitting  an  order 


UNIFICATION   OF   IDEAS.  271 

in  its  own  ideas,  that  is,  of  reducing  them  to  certain 
principles  or  leading  ideas.  We  have  seen  that,  in  the 
preceding  period,  the  human  mind  begins  to  work  from 
definite  principles,  which  year  by  year  advance  in  growth 
and  completeness.  We  should  make  use  of  these  principles, 
as  so  many  central  points  round  which  ideas  may  be  grouped. 
If,  therefore,  these  principles  begin  to  appear  at  the  third 
order  of  cognitions,  a  wise  teacher  can  already  make  use  of 
them  to  the  advantage  of  his  pupil  in  the  fourth  order, 
provided  he  faithfully  observe  the  grand  rule  of  education 
we  have  so  often  repeated,  i.  e.,  to  make  use,  in  connecting 
the  ideas  of  his  pupils,  of  those  principles  only  which  the 
child's  mind  has  already  received.  If  we  attempt  to  make 
him  use  any  others,  we  demand  from  him  an  impossibility. 

Great  skill  is  needed,  moreover,  to  obtain  the  intellectual 
and  moral  progress  we  aim  at ;  and  the  ideas  commonly 
entertained  about  the  manner  of  bringing  order  into  the 
cognitions  of  children  are,  as  a  rule,  sadly  incomplete  and 
inadequate.  It  seems  desirable,  therefore,  to  lay  down  in 
this  work  the  proper  order  to  be  introduced  into  the  juvenile 
mind,  so  as  to  obtain  the  best  possible  results. 

348.  The  wise  teacher  will  endeavor  to  procure  three 
advantages  for  his  pupil,  ^.  e.  : 

(1)  The  assistance  to  his  memory  which  is  derived  from 
the  association  of  his  ideas. 

(2)  The  introduction,  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  of  unity 
into  his  thoughts. 

(3)  The  foundation  of  this  order  on  a  true,  not  an  arbi- 
trary, basis,  i.  e.,  on  the  universal  order  of  things  ;  for  it  is 
this  which  gives  moral  importance  to  the  unity  of  thought. 

These  three  things  are  widely  different,  and  their  differ- 
ences must  be  carefully  noted.  They  are  very  apt  to  be 
confounded  together.  Sometimes  it  is  believed  that  all  that 
is  required  in  order  to  introduce  order  into  the  human  mind 


272  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

is  to  create  the  largest  possible  number  of  ideal  associa- 
tions ;  others  go  farther,  but  think  they  have  done  enough 
when  they  have  brought  the  child  to  heap  up,  as  it  were, 
all  his  ideas  round  a  leading  idea,  or  to  connect  them  with 
a  given  principle,  without  troubling  themselves  as  to  the 
choice  of  the  connecting  idea  or  principle.  They  thus 
create  a  fictitious,  instead  of  a  true,  order,  representing 
rather  fallacious  human  opinions  than  the  reality  of  nature, 
the  immutable  truth. 

Section  1.  ~  Association  of  Ideas. 

349.  It  must  be  carefully  observed  that  memory  and 
recollection  are  helped  by  any  kind  of  association  of  ideas, 
but  that  order  between  the  ideas  themselves  does  not  come 
from  every  kind  of  association ;  that  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
the  association  formed  from  accidental  and  minute  analo- 
gies between  incongruous  ideas  which  gives  a  frivolous,  un- 
stable, capricious  and  wholly  illogical  character  to  the  mind. 
Delirium  itself  is  maintained  by  a  rapid  and  extravagant 
association  of  ideas  ;  the  frivolity  of  children  has  the  same 
origin.  We  must  then  seek  for  sensible,  in  lieu  of  frivolous, 
associations,  and  that  is  already  no  easy  matter.  It  will  be 
of  some  use  in  smoothing  the  way  to  pass  in  review  here  the 
principal  kinds  of  association  of  ideas,  or,  rather,  the  various 
grounds  on  which  they  can  be  formed  into  so  many  natural 
groups. 

350.  The  first  of  these  grounds  is  the  unitive  force  of  the 
animal  nature^  which  has  very  many  functions  and  produces 
innumerable  phenomena.^  The  intelligent  mind  lets  itself 
at  first  be  guided  by  the  animal  nature,  and  thus,  when  two 
feelings  are  united  by  the  animal  unitive  force,  the  mind 
sees  as  united  all  the  ideas  or  cognitions  to  which  those 
feelings  correspond.     To  this  unitive  force  belongs,  as  its 

1  We  must  refer  to  all  that  we  have  said  elsewhere  on  this  unitive  force,  and 
the  singular  phenomena  by  which  it  simulates  intelligence.  {Anthropology,  nos. 
455  and  foil.) 


ASSOCIATION   OF   IDEAS.  273 

principal  function  in  the  matter  we  are  considering,  tlie 
animal  fancy  or  imagination,  which  joins  together  the  images 
that  have  once  appeared  in  conjunction,  either  through  con- 
tiguity in  space,  or  succession  in  time,  or  some  similarity 
in  the  impressions  produced,  or  some  analogy,  occasion- 
ally of  the  most  far-fetched  kind.  Any  portion  of  this 
complex  train  of  images  which  is  awakened  in  the  mind, 
calls  up  and  presents  all  the  others  ;  and  what  I  have  said 
here  of  complex  images,  that  is,  of  images  resulting  from 
several  others  joined  together,  no  matter  how,  is  true  of  all 
the  other  functions  of  the  unitive  force.  Through  it,  the 
animal  sets  in  motion,  by  an  instinctive  act,  not  one  faculty, 
but  a  whole  group  of  faculties.  This  group  moves  in  such 
perfect  accord  that  it  is  enough  that  the  animal  be  impelled 
to  an  act  belonging  to  any  one  of  them,  and  at  once  he  per- 
forms the  actions  belonging  to  all  the  rest.  It  is  from  these 
actions  that  the  intelligence  of  man  receives  its  materials, 
and  hence  the  act  of  any  one  faculty  suffices  to  call  up  the 
recollection  of  a  whole  condition  or  state  of  the  body,  and 
of  all  those  things  to  which  this  condition  and  state  are 
referred.  The  reason  of  this  conjunction  of  various  images, 
sensations,  and  instincts,  which  are  all  acts  of  the  various 
animal  faculties,  lies  wholly  in  the  unity  of  the  subject^  in 
which  all  its  powers  and  their  actions  are  rooted. 

351.  The  second  reason  is  the  unitive  force  of  the  intelli- 
gent animal  being,  man.  Through  this  Imman  unitive  force ^ 
the  order  of  intelligence  is  brought  into  accordance  with  the 
animal  order.  Single  or  isolated  action  of  the  latter  can 
scarcely  take  place,  without  setting  in  motion  the  intellect- 
ual order,  and  vice  versa.  Man  can  scarcely  act  as  an 
intelligence  without,  at  the  same  time,  touching  some  key, 
as  it  were,  of  the  animal  order. ^ 

1  This  second  ground  of  the  association  of  ideas  is  the  foundation  of  all  lan- 
guages and  all  writing.  By  these  artifices  man  proceeds  always  from  the  order  of 
sense  (connections  and  other  visible  signs)  to  the  order  of  the  intellect. 


274  ON    THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OP  METHOD. 

352.  The  third  ground  is  the  real  relation  linking  together 
ideas  and  thoughts^  as  when  an  elementary  idea  is  contained 
in  the  wider  synthesis  of  another,  or  a  consequence  in  its 
principle.  Such  connection  and  association  as  this  is  widely 
different  from  the  two  former  kinds,  as  the  following  exam- 
ples will  show  :  I  meet  some  one,  and  immediately  the  image 
of  his  parish  church  is  recalled  to  my  mind.  This  is  an  as- 
sociation of  images,  and  one  which  might  be  connected  and 
recalled  together  in  the  fancy  of  a  purely  sensitive  being. 
Here,  then,  we  have  the  first  ground  of  association.  Sup- 
pose, on  the  other  hand,  that  what  the  sight  of  that  person 
at  once  recalls  to  me  is  the  demonstration  of  a  beautiful 
mathematical  theorem,  which  I  have  heard  him  expound. 
Here  comes  in  the  second  ground  of  association,  the  unity 
of  the  animal-intelligent  subject,  for  the  association  is 
between  animal  sensations,  such  as  the  images  of  the  person, 
of  his  discourse,  etc.,  and  the  acts  of  the  mind,  such  as  the 
ideas  which  made  up  the  demonstration :  the  union  here  of 
the  two  orders,  animal  and  intellectual,  is  grounded  on  the 
unity  of  the  subject,  man.  The  case  would  be  the  same, 
if  the  recollection  of  the  mathematical  demonstration  should 
recall  to  me  the  face,  or  only  the  name,  of  the  master  who 
gave  it ;  except  that  in  this  case  the  passage  would  be  from 
the  intellectual  order  to  that  of  the  senses,  instead  of,  as 
in  the  former  one,  from  the  senses  to  the  intellect.  Be  it 
observed  that  in  none  of  these  cases  is  there  any  intrinsic  re- 
lation between  the  two  things  associated  in  our  minds.  There 
is  not  the  slightest  resemblance  between  a  person  and  the 
tower  of  a  church  ;  and  a  person  and  a  mathematical  theorem 
are  things  so  unlike,  of  such  a  totally  different  nature,  that 
not  only  can  they  not  be  included  in,  or  assimilated  with, 
each  other,  but  the  one  belongs  to  the  order  of  real  things, 
the  other  to  the  order  of  ideal  things,  and  thus  they  are 
separated  by  a  categorical  distinction.     This  would  not  be 


ORDER   OF   IDEAS.  275 

the  case  if,  when  a  principle  recurred  to  my  mind,  the 
consequences  of  that  principle,  which,  taken  together, 
form  the  demonstration  of  the  theorem,  should  at  once 
recur  to  me  also.  In  this  case,  ideas  recall  ideas ;  the 
action  is  entirely  within  the  order  of  intelligence.  The 
action  might  equally  lie  within  the  order  of  intelligence, 
even  though  its  matter  belonged  to  sense.  Thus,  if  at  the 
sight  of  a  man,  I  at  once  recall  that  he  is  a  being  com- 
posed of  body  and  soul,  there  is  an  association  of  thoughts  ; 
for,  between  the  thought  of  the  man  and  the  thought  of 
his  component  parts,  there  is  an  intrinsic  and  intellectual 
relation,  although  the  thought  of  the  man  may  have  been 
suggested  by  the  senses  or  the  imagination,  on  the  occasion 
of  my  seeing  him  or  remembering  to  have  seen  him. 

It  appears,  then,  that,  if  we  aimed  only  at  aiding  the 
child's  memory,  without  regard  to  the  choice  of  ideas,  any 
one  of  these  three  species  of  association  would  serve  our 
purpose.  It  is  evident  that  the  art  of  constructing  an 
artificial  memory  may  be  equally  well  founded  on  the  first, 
second,  or  third  species  of  association,  or  upon  all  three 

together. 

Section  2.  —  Order  of  Ideas. 

353.  But  this,  as  we  have  already  said,  does  not  suflSce 
for  the  moral  progress  of  the  child.  The  latter  demands 
several  things  :  (1)  that  the  child  should  learn  the  relations 
between  ideas  ;  (2)  that,  by  means  of  these  relations,  which 
become  so  many  general  principles  of  thought  and  reasoning 
in  his  mind,  he  should  acquire  facility  in  passing  from  the 
one  to  the  other,  not  by  the  simple  act  of  recollection,  but 
by  the  use  of  his  own  reasoning  powers ;  (3)  that  this 
passage  should  be  made  by  him  freely,  and  not  in  virtue 
of  some  unnecessary  and  casual  instinct,  so  that  he  may 
gain  a  mastery  over  his  own  cognitions  and  thoughts, 
keeping  them  ready  to  use  at  will. 


276  ON    THE   KULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

These  advantages  we  can  obtain  only  by  leading  the  child 
to  form  associations  of  the  third  species,  those  resting  on 
the  intrinsic  relations  of  the  ideas  and  things  known  to 
him.  If  we  consider  that  each  relation  between  known 
ideas  and  things  is  learned  by  us  through  a  single  act  of  the 
intellect,  it  will  be  easy  to  reduce  such  relations  to  a  single 
formula,  viz.,  that  every  intellectual  association  consists  in 
discerning  the  elementary  cognitions  composing  a  complex 
cognition,  and  in  passing  from  the  elementary  cognitions  to 
the  complex  one. 

Complex  cognitions  are :  (1)  the  larger  classifications  of 
things,  including  minor  classifications  as  their  elements ; 
(2)  the  ideas  of  composite  things,  in  which  the  ideas  of  the 
component  parts  are  included  as  elements ;  (3)  and  still 
more  general,  the  principles  in  which  consequences  are 
contained  as  elementary  cognitions. 

A  good  teacher  should,  therefore,  know  how  to  observe 
accurately,  and  to  find  out,  by  opportune  questions  and 
experiments,  what  are  the  classifications  formed  in  the 
child's  mind  at  each  period  of  childhood,  together  with  the 
ideas  he  has  of  complex  objects  and  principles.  Starting 
from  these  data,  which  he  finds  already  existing,  he  should 
make  his  pupil  descend  gradually  from  the  widest  classifica- 
tion he  has  framed  to  narrower  ones,  and  from  these  ascend 
again  to  the  former,  making  him  analyze  the  complex  ob- 
jects known  to  him,  and  from  the  parts  already  discerned 
reconstruct  the  whole.  Finally,  he  should  lead  him  from 
principles  —  but,  be  it  understood,  his  own  principles  not 
another's — to  consequences,  and  back  again  to  principles. 

It  is  evident  that  such  exercises  are  admirably  adapted 
to  bring  order  into  the  child's  thoughts,  by  causing  him 
always  to  sum  up  things  under  their  widest  classification, 
teaching  him  at  the  same  time  to  distinguish  the  parts  of 
things,  but  as  united  in  their  whole,  and  attaching,  as  it 


ORDER   OF   IDEAS.  277 

were,  to  the  dominant  principles,  their  innumerable  conse- 
quences.^ 

It  must  be  evident  to  all  that  the  child  learns  by  this 
method  what  are  the  natural  links  between  ideas,  and 
acquires  facility  in  mentally  passing  from  one  to  the  other, 
besides  gaining  command  over  his  own  thoughts.  For,  the 
mind  which  has  grasped  a  wide  class  of  things  can,  at  will, 
pass  to  the  consideration  of  a  smaller  class,  which,  without 
the  former,  would  be  impossible  to  it.  Whosoever,  there- 
fore, knows  a  whole,  is  able  to  know  its  parts,  and  whoso- 
ever has  grasped  a  principle,  can,  by  the  virtual  extension  of 
it,  pass  at  will  to  all  its  consequences.  It  may  thus  be  said, 
with  truth,  that  each  man's  freedom  of  thought  extends  just 
so  far  as  the  actual  complexity  of  his  cognitions. 

355.  In  giving  this  greater  attention  to  intellectual  asso- 
ciations, we  do  not  neglect  the  two  other  species  of  cog- 
nition, derived  from  the  animal,  and  from  the  human, 
unitive  force,  but  we  co-ordinate,  and  submit  them  to  rea- 
son, so  that  man  may  acquire  the  mastery  over  them  and 
use  them  freely  for  his  purposes.  And  why  is  it  easier 
to  learn  by  heart  a  discourse  which  has  a  meaning  to  us 
than  a  mass  of  disconnected  words,  thrown  together  by 
chance?  Because  to  recall  the  succession  of  sounds  only 
is  a  mere  unreasoning  process ;  but,  if  the  sounds  convey 
a  meaning,  the  order  of,  ideas  quickly  comes  to  our  aid  and 
makes  even  this  unreasoning  operation  easier. 

Vice  versa^  the  animal  association  assists  us  in  recalling 
ideas,  together  with  their  order ;  for  the  order  of  our  ideas 
depends  on  other  connecting  ideas,  which  may  be  attached 
to  visible  signs,  and  thus  the  visible  signs  may  recall  to  the 
mind  the  order  we  want.     But  we  obtain  this  result,  not 

1  One  of  the  principles  most  readily  manifested  in  the  infant  mind  is  that  of 
analogy.  By  following  this  natural  lead,  an  immense  use  may  be  made  of  it  in  the 
instruction  of  the  young;  but  it  must  be  done  with  due  care  to  put  them  on  their 
guard  against  its  fallacies. 


278  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

from  nature  left  to  herself,  but  from  art.  It  must  have  for 
its  antecedent  a  mind  which,  being  already  in  possession  of 
ordered  ideas,  attaches  to  them  the  corresponding  sounds. 
The  sounds  or  visible  signs  then  serve  admirably,  either  to 
communicate  to  others  the  same  order  of  ideas  and  to  recall 
to  the  mind  itself  the  ideas  so  ordered.  This  is  the  history 
of  the  invention  of  reading  and  writing  and  the  reason  of 
the  enormous  assistance  they  have  given  to  the  progress 
of  the  human  mind. 

Section  3.  — Moral  Order  of  Ideas. 

356.  It  is  only  the  association  founded  on  the  order 
of  ideas  that  can  be  of  service  to  morality. 

We  have  seen  that  the  two  first  species  of  association 
are  based  on  the  unitive  force  of  the  subject :  it  is  the  unity 
of  the  subject  which  produces  them.  The  third,  on  the 
contrary,  has  its  reason  in  the  object  itself,  that  is,  in  the 
truth.  This  observation  suffices  of  itself  to  explain  why 
the  latter  species  of  association  alone  has  a  close  relation 
to  morality.  It  prepares  the  way  for  morality  ;  for  virtue 
c^nsists  in  nothing  else  than  the  voluntary  recognition  of* 
the  objective  order. ^ 

But  the  objective  order  must  be  completely  recognized  by 
the  will ;  and  the  more  completely  it  is  so  recognized,  the  more 
moral  does  it  become,  and  the  more  of  virtue  will  there  be  in 
the  man.  This  means  that  education  should  tend :  (1)  to 
connect  the  child's  ideas  and  thoughts  by  their  natural  and 
true  relations,  and  not  by  false  and  arbitrary  ones  ;  (2)  that 
this  connection  of  ideas  should  be  as  complete  as  possible. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  how  this  doctrine  agrees  with  the 
supreme  principle  of  education  I  have  elsewhere  laid  down, 
and  enunciated  as  follows  :  Man  must  be  led  to  conform 
his  mind  to  the  order  of  things  outside  of  him,  and  not  to 

1  See  Principi  delta  Scienza  Morale,  Cap.  IV. 


MORAL  ORDER  OF   IDEAS.  279 

strive  to  conform  outward  things   to  the  casual  affections 
of  his  mind.^ 

357.  I  have  also  shown  that  education  should  embrace 
the  mind^  the  hearty  and  the  life  of  man.^^  Now  the  heart, 
that  is,  the  will  together  with  the  affections,  should  be  in 
accordance  with  the  mind,  and  the  life  with  the  heart.  If 
the  mind  is  thus  conformed  to  the  objective  order  of  things, 
if  it  possesses  the  serene  light  of  truth,  not  the  false  and 
confusing  lights  of  opinion  and  prejudice,  the  heart  will  have 
a  type,  as  it  were,  on  which  to  mould  itself,  and  the  life  will 
be  a  continual  image  of  the  heart.  If  the  life  is  to  be  a 
continual  working  out  of  universal  good,  the  heart  must 
first  be  filled  with  universal  charity ;  and  the  latter  cannot 
enter  the  heart  unless  the  mind  is  so  disposed  as  to  exclude 
no  form  of  knowledge,  but  to  embrace  all.  The  universality 
of  an  impartial  mind  produces  the  universality  of  the  benev- 
olent heart,  and  the  universality  of  the  benevolent  heart 
produces  the  universality  of  a  good  life.  The  child's  mind 
should,  then,  be  educated  to  recognize  all  the  connections 
of  things  which  he  is  capable  of  perceiving  at  each  period 
of  his  childhood,  in  other  words,  all  of  the  objective  order 
which  he  is  capable  of  recognizing,  and,  to  bring  him  to 
this,  the  association  of  things  in  his  mind  must  not  be  left 
to  chance,  but  be  duly  ordered,  the  most  important  coming 
first,  the  less  important  afterwards. 

358.  As  being  is  one,  and  there  are  three  categories,  so, 
likewise,  there  is  one  supreme  unity  in  things,  and  three 
modes  of  relation. 

The  supreme  unity  is  formed  by  the  idea  of  God,  the 
essential  being.  The  unity  of  God  should,  then,  be  made 
predominant  in  the   mind  of  the  child.      To  God,   as  the 

1  See  Saggio  dell*  Unitd  delV  Educazione,  inserted  in  the  Opuscoli  Filoso^ 
fici,  Vol.  I.,  p.  234,  and  in  Vol.  II.  of  this  Collection.    [Turin,  1883,  pp.  1-70.] 
«  Ibid, 


280  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

Creator,  the  Preserver,  the  Fountain  of  all  Goodness,  the 
child  should  refer  all  things  ;  but  this  must  always  be  done 
by  using  the  idea  proper  to  the  period  the  child  has  reached. 
In  the  first  and^^econd  orders  of  cognitions,  he  conceives 
God  as  the  complement  of  being :  he  conceives  him  as  the 
real,  intellectual,  good,  all  in  one. 

To  refer  all  things  to  God  and  merge  all  things  in  Him, 
through  the  widest  generality  of  expression,  is,  therefore, 
at  once  the  easiest  way  and  the  first  step  towards  making 
children  feel  and  understand  the  predominance  of  the  idea 
of  God,  as  almost  absorbing  all  others. 

The  same  idea  of  God  continues  in  the  third  order,  but 
it  is  no  longer  so  absorbing ;  it  is  distinguished  from  other 
ideas,  and  gains  in  greatness  by  the  distinction.  Already  a 
secret  sense  of  adoration  may  be  awakened.  Self -surrender, 
the  sacrifice  of  all  things  to  God,  is  the  second  step,  the 
second  mode  of  subordinating  that  which  is  contingent  to 
the  Supreme  Being. 

In  the  fourth  order  God  is  manifested  as  Will.  That 
is,  God  having  been  distinguished  from  His  creatures,  we 
distinguish  in  God  Himself  His  perfect  will  from  His  intel- 
lectual nature.  To  conform  our  own  wills  without  reserve 
to  the  divine  will,  to  bring  into  due  subordination  every 
will  to  that  one  alone,  is  a  principle  which  again  gives  unity 
to  our  other  ideas  in  the  idea  of  God.  It  is  the  third  step, 
the  third  mode  of  understanding  and  perceiving  the  connec- 
tion between  all  other  things  and  the  Supreme  Being. 

In  the  fifth  order  some  knowledge  can  be  attained  of  the 
.  divine  precepts,  and  to  accept  them  with  absolute  devotion 
is  the  fourth  mode  of  referring  all  things  to  God. 

Finally,  in  the  sixth  order,  God  begins  to  be  known  as 
Intelligence  or  Supreme  Reason.  It  is  then  only  that  we 
discern  in  God  the  three  forms  of  His  being,  —  the  moral, 
the  ideal,  and  the  real, — which  at  first  were  all  indistinctly 


GOD   AS   IDEAL,   REAL,   MORAL.  281 

merged  in  the  idea  of  the  Absohite.  This  opens  up  a  fifth 
mode  of  referring  all  things  to  God,  grounding  in  Him  the 
reasons  of  all  things,  and  in  all  adoring  His  eternal  wisdom. 

These  five  modes  of  co-ordinating  all  created  things 
under  the  supreme  unity  of  the  Creator,  and  thus  bringing 
under  the  highest  and  most  natural  order  the  mind,  the 
heart,  and  the  life,  should  be  deeply  studied  by  the  en- 
lightened and  Christian  teacher.  How  to  develop  these 
five  successive  degrees  and  different  kinds  of  religious 
instruction,  and  to  find  the  proper  methods  of  applying 
them  and  gradually  introducing  them  into  the  minds  •  of 
children,  might  be  made  the  subject  of  a  book  most  impor- 
tant and  necessary  for  the  furtherance  of  sound  education. 

359.  Coming  now  to  the  order  in  the  child's  cognitions 
which  should  be  derived,  at  each  period  of  childhood,  from 
the  categories  of  being,  we  find  that,  as  there  are  three  of 
these,  so  there  are  three  principles  of  order  and  unity. 

Let  us  begin  with  ideality.  This  category  of  things 
derives  its  unity  from  universal  ideal  being.  It  will  be 
desirable,  then,  to  make  the  child  regard  in  all  things 
their  being,  and  to  teach  him  to  look  upon  the  modes 
of  being  which  constitute  the  differences  between  things 
as  simple  limitations,  or,  if  you  will,  acts  of  it,  thus  carry- 
ing him  down  from  the  largest  to  the  smallest  class  of  things. 
But  what  shall  be  the  degrees  of  this  scale?  They  must 
differ  in  each  period ;  and  the  wise  teacher  will  find  them 
by  teaching  the  child  to  talk,  and,  by  watching  and  reflecting 
on  his  words,  he  will  discover  what  classification  of  things 
he  has  made  for  himself  at  each  period.  These  classi- 
fications will  certainly  be  grounded,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  on  semi-abstract  ideas  ;  but  the  latter  will  vary  with 
the  development  of  the  child  and  constitute  classes  of  vary- 
ing comprehensiveness.  In  any  case,  when  we  have  ascer- 
tained what  are  the  semi-abstractions  on  which  the  child 


282  ON  THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

grounds  his  classification, "we  must  bring  them  into  order  for 
him,  make  him  see  which  is  the  larger  and  which  the  smaller, 
which  contains  another  and  which  is  contained  by  it.  In 
short,  the  gradations  by  which  the  child  descends  from  ideal 
being  to  determinate  beings  should  be  those  already  existing 
in  his  mind,  or  those  nearest  to  them,  those  to  which  he  may 
pass  easily  when  the  occasion  arises. 

360.  The  next  question  is  how  to  order  the  child's 
thoughts  concerning  reality.  Real  existences  are  perceived 
by  man  as  subsisting  and  acting. 

As  regards  subsistence,  the  child  should  be  led  to  find  its 
material  elements,  and  here  again  be  made  to  pass  from  the 
more  composite  to  the  less  composite,  for  example,  from  the 
world,  as  a  whole,  to  its  larger  parts,  and  so  on  to  the  less 
and  less.  But  the  same  rule,  of  speaking  to  the  child  only 
of  such  parts  as  he  has  learned  to  know,  should  be  followed 
here  :  for  instance,  from  the  house  he  may  be  led  to  the  idea 
of  rooms ;  from  the  idea  of  the  rooms  to  the  several  places 
which  can  be  pointed  out  within  them,  or  something  of  the 
kind.  The  child  could  be  brought  very  early  to  some  knowl- 
edge of  chemical  principles :  a  botanical  garden,  a  natural 
history  collection,  arranged  for  his  use,  and  other  similar 
helps,  would  greatly  assist  in  the  task.  All  existences  can 
then  be  reduced  to  the  general  idea  of  the  universe,  and 
ultimately  to  that  of  God,  as  essential  subsistence. 

With  regard  to  the  action  of  thiugs,  we  must,  likewise,  find 
out  what  are  the  definite  principles  which  the  child  has 
been  able  to  form  for  himself  respecting  the  powers  and 
activities  of  things,  and  always  use  these  as  guides  in 
our  teaching.  Principles  of  action,  powers,  causes  become 
by  degrees  more  and  more  clearly  conceived  and  marked  out 
in  the  child's  mind.  As  soon  as  the  teacher  perceives  that 
a  given  principle  is  already  formed  there,  he  should  possess 
himself  of  it,  so  as  to  group  round  it  several  ideas,  and  lead 


ORDER  OF   IDEAS   IN   THE   CHILD'S   MIND.  283 

the  child  to  apply  it  frequently  and  to  as  many  things  as  he 
can.  In  this  way,  the  principles  become  precious  means  of 
linking  together  separate  ideas,  and  give  the  mind  order, 
light,  and  power.  Many  of  these  associations  become  of 
value  to  moral  progress,  as,  for  example,  when  the  child 
advances  far  enough  to  know  that  all  men  have  one  origin, 
proceed  from  one  father,  and,  therefore,  constitute  a  single 
family. 

361.  We  come  now  to  the  third  category,  that  of  morality. 
We  have  shown  what  are  the  moral  principles  which  the 
child  forms  for  himself  in  each  of  the  four  orders  of  cogni- 
tions. It  will  be  the  wisdom  of  the  teacher  to  take  these 
as  the  ground  of  his  moral  lessons  ;  for  in  no  other  way  can 
he  make  himself  understood  by  his  pupil.  To  these  prin- 
ciples he  must  continually  refer  actions,  and  lead  the  child 
to  apply  them  himself,  thus  bringing  variety  into  his  ideas 
of  action,  by  rising  to  their  causes. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

MORAL  EDUCATION  CORRESPONDING  TO  THE  FOURTH  ORDER  OF 
COGNITIONS. 

Maxima  dehetur  puero  reverentia.  —  Juvenal,  Sat.  xiv.  47. 

362.  We  have  now  arrived  at  education.  In  treating 
of  the  education  corresponding  to  the  fourth  order  of 
cognitions,  we  shall  follow  the  same  method  as  hitherto, 
i,  e.,  we  shall  point  out  what  will  be  of  use,  not  only 
in  this  period,  but  also  in  all  the  succeeding  ones. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  necessity  of  truthfulness  in  every 
utterance  ot  the  teacher. 

ARTICLE    I. 

THE  child's  credulity  SHOULD  NOT  BE  ABUSED. 

363.  We  have  already  observed  that  the  child's  readiness 
to  believe   springs   from  his   affection.     The   abuse  of  it, 


284  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OE   METHOD. 

therefore,  by  adults,  is  an  act  of  base  ingratitude.  It  is 
true  that  to  the  thoughtlessness  and  selfishness  of  adults 
this  proposition  is  wholly  incomprehensible.  The  child's 
ignorance  and  weakness,  the  fact  that  he  is  helpless  in 
their  hands,  unable  to  defend  himself  or  even  to  plead  his 
cause,  seem  to  them  sufficient  grounds  for  disregarding  their 
tender  brother,  and  believing  themselves  entitled  to  make  of 
him,  and  to  do* to  him,  what  they  please,  be  it  good  or  bad. 

We  have  also  seen  that  the  spontaneous  benevolence  of 
the  child  is  a  moral  thing,  and  duly  taught  him  by  nature 
herself.  Whosoever,  then,  abuses  the  credulity  of  childhood, 
which  is  the  effect  of  this  benevolence,  profanes  a  sacred 
thing  and  despises  the  moral  and  divine  element  which  gives 
its  highest  dignity  to  the  intelligent  soul. 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  the  child's  benevolence  should 
not  only  be  carefully  respected  as  a  moral  thing,  but  that  its 
cultivation  should  be  made  a  special  study  and  be  so  di- 
rected that  it  may  preserve  and  increase  its  moral  value, 
and  attain  its  end,  ^.  e.,  universality,  so  that  the  child  shall 
love  all  persons,  and  all  in  their  due  degree.  The  ground 
of  this  universality  of  benevolence,  and  the  lines  it  follows, 
will  be  found  in  the  order  of  thought  which  we  have  recom- 
mended to  be  gradually  introduced  into  the  child's  mind,  as 
he  becomes  capable  of  it.  This  most  excellent  order  of 
thought  is  no  other  than  Truth,  in  its  fulness  and  its 
purest  light ;  for  truth  is  in  itself  order,  and  in  the  mind 
where  there  is  disorder  there  is  also  falsehood.  We  may 
judge  from  this  what  care,  what  earnestness,  what  upright- 
ness are  required  of  the  parents  and  teachers  of  children. 
With  what  care  should  these,  if  they  are  wise,  weigh  all 
their  words,  so  as  to  introduce  nothing  that  is  false  into 
the  child's  mind,  no  vulgar  error,  no  prejudice,  no  exag- 
gerated opinion,  no  partial  estimates.  On  the  other  hand, 
who  but  the  really  wise  and  good  will  be  convinced  that 


TRUTHFULNESS.  285 

it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  keep  the  child's  mind 
absolutely  pure  and  free  from  every  sort  of  prejudice, 
whether  national,  or  belonging  to  family,  or  condition,  or 
rank?  Yet  only  in  this  way  can  children  be  brought  into 
the  best  disposition  towards  virtue,  knowledge,  and  happi- 
ness. Happy  they  to  whom  Providence,  in  bringing  them 
into  the  world,  has  allotted  such  teachers  ! 

364.  Besides  the  very  serious  mischief  done  to  children 
by  every  seed  of  falsehood  introduced  into  their  minds,  the 
want  of  sincerity  and  truth  in  their  teachers  retards  their 
moral  development.  I  have  already  shown  that  the  child's 
readiness  to  believe  and  his  docility  increase,  when  he  finds 
from  experience  that  what  he  has  believed  helps  him  in 
further  processes  of  reasoning  (nos.  336,  337)  ;  but,  if  he 
finds  that  this  help  fails  him,  and  what  he  leaned  upon  is 
false,  his  trustfulness  will  be  shaken,  instead  of  confirmed 
and  augmented.  Nothing  can  be  more  pernicious  to  the 
child's  moral  nature  than  the  distrust  thus  engendered. 

"To  deceive  a  child  is  not  only  to  give  him  a  pernicious 
example,  but  it  is  to  damage  ourselves  fatally  in  his  eyes 
forever  after,  and  to  renounce  his  whole  education,  of  which 
we  can  never  again  be  the  instruments.  How  can  we  fail  to 
feel  that  our  credit  in  the  minds  of  children  depends  wholly 
on  their  profound  and  intimate  conviction  that  we  are 
incapable  of  deceiving  them?  Nor  let  it  be  imagined  that 
their  trust  will  long  remain  blind.  It  might,  perhaps,  if 
they  had  no  reason  to  doubt  us ;  but  there  are  people  who 
do  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  conceal,  with  any  care,  the 
bad  faith  and  untruthfulness  with  which  they  permit  them- 
selves most  frequently  to  treat  them  ;  their  empty  promises 
come  to  be  known  for  what  they  are,  and  mark  an  epoch 
in  the  children's  minds. 

' '  Everything  can  be  atoned  for  to  children  except  false- 
hood.    You   may  be   impatient,  violent,  unjust  for  a  mo- 


286  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

ment ;  it  is  very  bad ;  but  they  may  forget  it.  What  the 
child  most  wants  to  know  is  whether  he  can  trust  you ;  the 
whole  future  in  his  thought  is  included  in  that  question. 
If  he  has  found  you  always  true  to  the  letter,  your  moral 
influence  remains  intact ;  but,  if  he  has  once  found  you  false, 
you  are  henceforth  to  him  only  a  material  and  irregular 
force,  the  action  of  which  cannot  be  foreseen,  and,  there- 
fore, need  not  be  taken  into  consideration."^ 

ARTICLE    II. 

OBEDIENCE  NOT  TO  BE  ABUSED. 

365.  The  same  danger  that  arises  from  abuse  of  the 
child's  trustfulness  arises  from  abuse  of  his  obedience  and 
docility. 

The  supreme  law  of  education  should  be  that  everything 
in  the  child,  mind,  heart,  and  life,  should  be  true.  The 
child's  mind  maintains  its  rectitude  by  following  the  uni- 
versal order  of  ideas. ^  The  heart  preserves  its  rectitude, 
in  like  manner,  by  the  orderly  universality  of  its  benevolence, 
and  the  life  receives  and  maintains  its  rectitude  by  orderly 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  iv. 

2  This  universality  in  thought  is  similar  to  the  universality  in  benevolence. 
Sec.  III.  (nos.  232,  234,  and  foil. )  We  have  shown  this  character  of  universality  in 
benevolence  to  consist  in  keeping  the  heart  open,  placing  no  arbitrary  limits  to  its 
affections,  so  that  it  may  be  ever  ready  to  extend  them  to  fresh  persons,  according 
to  their  merits.  But,  just  as  the  heart  which  has  confined  itself  within  arbitrary 
limits,  making  certain  persons  the  exclusive  objects  of  its  affection,  shrinks  at  the 
sight  of  a  stranger,  as  from  an  enemy,  so  does  the  mind  which  has  entrenched 
itself  within  certain  lines,  beyond  which  it  will  not  pass,  shrink  from  a  new  idea. 
Arbitrary  opinions  and  convictions,  if  they  become  strong,  as  generally  happens, 
from  some  secret  interested  motive,  form  just  that  line  of  limitation  by  which  the 
mind  is  confined,  besieged,  and  compressed.  A  mind  thus  narrowed  is  hostile  to 
every  opinion,  every  doctrine,  differing  from  its  own  ;  every  new  idea  has  the 
appearance  of  an  enemy,  and  it  fights  against  its  admission,  as  dogs  against  the  dog 
that  has  become  a  stranger.  But  what  human  being  is  wholly  free  from  this 
propensity  of  the  mind,  this  wrong  mental  disposition,  this  grudge  against  some 
portion  of  the  truth  ?  It  would  be  hard  to  find  one,  and  this  because  education, 
far  from  taking  provident  care  to  protect  the  child  from  so  serious  an  evil,  rather 
communicates  it  recklessly,  as  by  contagion.  What  a  new  humanity  would  cover 
the  earth,  if  this  single  rule  of  education  came  to  be  understood  and  universally 
practised! 


RECTITUDE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  287 

and  reasonable  action,  corresponding  to  the  highest  order 
of  thoughts  and  affections.  By  making  the  child  act  irra- 
tionally or  at  haphazard,  not  to  say  wrongly,  and  letting 
him  contract  habits  which  have  no  foundation  in  nature 
or  reason,  we  warp  both  his  affections  and  thoughts ;  for 
disorder  in  the  life  is  communicated  to  the  heart  and  mind : 
these  three  things  are  bound  up  together  in  intimate  com- 
munion. 

It  is,  then,  a  great  error  to  make  the  child  a  plaything 
for  ourselves,  instead  of  looking  to  his  permanent  good ; 
to  use  him  as  a  means,  instead  of  respecting  in  him  the 
dignity  of  the  end.  Yet  how  few  parents  are  altogether 
free  from  this  sin !  Too  often  the  idea  that  the  child  is 
their  property  is  the  first  that  enters  their  heads.  Tribal 
laws  contributed  to  strengthen  this  prejudice  in  men's 
minds,  and  Christianity  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  driving 
it  out  of  their  mental  habit  or  their  customs. 

ARTICLE    III. 
ON  MAINTAINING  THE  RECTITUDE  OF  THE  CHILD'S  CONSCIENCE. 

366.  From  ignorance  of  the  right  way  of  commanding 
obedience,  and  from  failure  to  direct  aright  the  child's 
actions  towards  his  own  best  good,  his  conscience  soon 
begins  to  be  warped.  The  duties  of  parents  and  teachers, 
in  the  formation  of  conscience  within  him,  are  amongst  the 
gravest  and  most  difficult  to  fulfil.  Of  these,  then,  we  must 
now  speak,  and  we  will  take  up  the  argument  again  from 
the  beginning. 

To  the  smile  on  a  human  face  the  child  responds  by  his 
earliest  act  of  intelligence,  which  is,  at  the  same  time,  an 
act  of  benevolence.  This  benevolence  we  have  shown  to 
have  a  moral  character.  Hence,  we  may  see  the  admirable 
design  of  Providence  in  placing  in  the  mother's  heart  that 
ineffable  love  by  which  man's  intelligence  and  moral  nature 


288  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OE   METHOD. 

are  most  fitly  stimulated  on  his  first  entrance  into  this 
world.  We  may  see  also  that  the  mother's  tenderness,  far 
from  being  injurious  to  the  child,  is  that  which  speaks  to 
him,  inviting  and  drawing  him  on,  from  the  first,  to  know 
another's  intelligence  and  goodness,  to  which  he  must  needs 
show  love  and  reverence,  in  proportion  as  it  shows  itself 
good  and  loving  to  him. 

But  soon  comes  the  danger  that  all  his  affections  will 
be  spent  on  a  few  objects,  and,  therefore,  care  should  be 
taken,  as  we  said  before,  that  his  heart  be  not  closed  against 
any  kindly  intelligence,  and  especially  not  to  oppose  to  any 
such  intelligence  a  feeling  of  malevolence. 

367.  The  time  comes,  and  it  is  that  of  the  third  order  of 
cognitions,  when  the  child  learns,  through  language,  that  the 
beings  who  have  been  revealed  to  him  from  the  first,  in  the 
light  of  goodness  and  lovableness,  have  also  a  will ;  and  his 
first  impulse  is  to  conform  himself  to  this,  to  live  in  it,  with- 
out any  thought  of  himself.  This,  again,  is  an  eminently 
moral  act.  But  we  inust  observe  here  that  this  disposition 
to  obey,  to  conform  to  the  will  of  another,  springs  from  the 
belief,  which  has  grown  up  in  him,  that  that  will  must  be 
good,  because  the  being  who  exercises  it  is  good.  Hence 
his  spontaneous  obedience  is  readier  in  proportion  as  he 
loves  and  esteems  the  intelligent  being  he  obeys,  and  his 
love  and  esteem  are  great  in  proportion  to  the  goodness 
he  perceives  in  tliis  being.  Now,  if  we  consider  the  child's 
means  of  measuring  the  goodness  of  the  intelligent  beings 
with  whom  he  comes  in  contact,  we  shall  find  that  his  judg- 
ment can  rest  only  on  such  data  as  his  age  admits  of.  If  a 
being  corresponds  with  these  data,  he  is  just  and  righteous ; 
for  moral  justice  and  rectitude  must  always  be  relative  to 
the  subject,  that  is,  relative  to  the  mode  in  which  the  object 
is  perceived  by  the  subject.  The  only  data  possible  at  that 
tender  age  are  those  supplied  by  that  immediate  communion 


RECTITUDE    OF   CONSCIENCE.  289 

of  souls,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  between  the  infant  and 
the  persons  around  him,  as  taking  place  through  smiles, 
kisses,  caresses,  sensible  pleasures  given  him,  services  ren- 
dered to  him.  The  more  lovingly  he  is  treated,  the  more  of 
goodness  does  he  perceive  in  the  being  that  so  treats  him, 
and  he  rightly  responds  to  it  with  love  and  obedience. 

This  explains,  in  the  first  place,  why  the  child's  obedience 
is  not  the  same  towards  every  one,  being  absolute  towards 
certain  persons  and  almost  nil  towards  others  :  it  also  ex- 
plains why  he  appears  to  feel  keen  remorse  when  he  has 
disobeyed,  say,  his  mother,  and  little  or  none  in  the  case 
of  others,  and  why  his  mother's  will,  and  not  that  of  otlj^ers, 
becomes  his  abiding  rule  of  action.  This  fact  is  noted  by 
a  mother,  with  her  usual  delicacy  of  observation. 

"I  have  already  said  that  an  affectionate  child  believes 
himself  generally  to  belong  to  one  person.^  It  is  to  this 
person  he  feels  himself  responsible  for  his  actions  ;  with 
others  his  relations  are  far  less  intimate.  He  sets  himself 
right  with  other  authorities  as  he  can ;  but  the  reproaches 
of  his  true  ruler  go  to  his  heart.  That  ruler  is  to  him  a 
conscience,  by  whose  judgment,  which  he  foresees,  he  is 
absolved  or  condemned.  It  is  this  one  that  his  imagination 
pictures  in  the  decisive  moment  of  trial.  Often  the  imagi- 
nation is  so  vivid  that  disobedience  becomes  impossible ; 
and,  through  the  not  unnatural  effect  of  strong  illusion,  he 
even  believes  himself  seen  by  that  person,  whose  knowledge 

1  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  child  has  the  perception  of  power  in  his  mother, 
but  of  a  beneficent  and,  therefore,  rightful  power, — a  dominion.  This  idea  of 
power  is  wholly  different  from  the  naked  one  of  force ;  indeed,  the  idea  of  brute 
force  remains  for  a  long  time  inconceivable  to  the  young  child.  Power  includes, 
in  his  thought,  goodness,  because  kindness,  or,  at  least,  beneficence,  must  come 
from  power.  The  child,  then,  conceives  in  his  mother  this  power  of  beneficence, 
an  absolute  power  to  which  he  loves  to  give  himself  up,  to  surrender  himself 
utterly,  thereby  recognizing  the  legitimacy  of  the  dominion  she  exercises  over 
him.  This  is  the  true  dominion,  the  highest  moral  authority.  The  child's  ideas 
are  always  of  more  value  than  those  of  philosophers. 


290  ON   THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

of  what  he  has  done  at  a  distance  is,  therefore,  no  surprise 
to  him.  At  that  age,  the  idea  of  an  invisible  looker-on  has 
nothing  offensive  in  it.^ 

But  if,  through  forge tfulness  or  weakness,  the  child  has 
yielded  to  temptation,  when  he  finds  himself  again  in  the 
presence  of  his  ruler,  remorse  enters  into  his  heart.  He 
might  meet  without  emotion  the  owner  of  the  fruit  or 
flowers  he  has  stolen ;  but  he  reddens  with  confusion,  if  he 
finds  himself  before  the  representative  of  his  conscience. 
It  is  to  this  one  he  makes  his  confessions  and  enters  into 
tender  and  touching  explanations.  It  is  towards  this  one 
that  he  feels  the  need  of  expiation,  so  natural  to  a  guilty 
heart,  conscious  of  serious  wrong-doing ;  sometimes  he  will 
even  punish  himself.^ 

We  may  note  by  the  way  that  this  explains  the  apparent 
fluctuations  of  infant  morality.  Founded  upon  the  affec- 
tions, it  must  appear  as  mobile  as  they  ;  but  none  the  less 
it  has  a  moral  value  and  a  stable  principle,  that  of  respect- 
ing and  loving  goodness  in  beings. 

368.  Let  us  go  on  to  the  duty  of  the  educator  towards  the 
incipient  conscience  of  the  child.  In  the  first  place,  we 
have  shown  that,  if  he  can  maintain  a  universal  and  regu- 
lated benevolence  ^  in  the  child's  mind,  this  will  prove  an  ex- 
cellent rule  of  morality  to  give  and  maintain ;  and  the  child 
will  quietly  direct  and  restrain  by  it  his  affections  and  ac- 
tions. As  yet,  however,  there  is  in  him  no  principle  of  moral 
conscience.     He  has  reached  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions 

1  Another  reason  for  this  is,  that  the  human  mind,  before  it  has  learned  from 
experience  the  limitations  of  things,  conceives  everything,  as  we  have  observed, 
without  limitation  ;  the  form  of  the  mind  being  itself  unlimited,  and  illimitable 
being  that  in  which,  and  through  which,  it  sees  all  things. 

2  Education  Progressive,  L.  III.,  ch.  vi. 

3  On  this  account,  I  consider  not  only  ill-usage,  but  whatever  can  alarm  the 
child's  imagination,  very  prejudicial  to  infant  morality  ;  for  the  imagination  of 
fear  makes  the  child  conceive  objects  worse  and  more  odious  than  even  those 
which  cause  him  pain. 


RECTITUDE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  291 

and,  having  learned  to  know  a  positive  will,  he  has  judged 
and  recognized  it  as  his  future  rule  of  action,  to  which  his 
physical  gratifications  must  be  postponed  ;  but  he  is  unable 
to  judge  that  this  will  is  good  from  its  intrinsic  reasonable- 
ness, and  deems  it  good  only  because  of  his  conviction  that 
the  being  who  exercises  it  is  good.  It  is  when  the  collision 
comes  between  the  ivill  of  another  and  his  own  physical 
tendencies  that,  in  the  judgment  of  preference  for  the  one 
or  the  other,  in  his  temptation  and  fall,  arises  the  first  dawn 
of  conscience  in  his  soul,  called  up  by  the  remorse  which 
he  feels,  or,  at  least,  has  a  presentiment  of. 

The  duty  of  the  educator  relatively  to  the  incipient  con- 
science of  the  child  consists,  then,  in  always  manifesting  a 
will  that  is  good  in  relation  to  him ;  for,  that  will  being  the 
child's  rule  of  action,  if  it  is  good,  the  rule  will  be  good  ;  and 
he  will  esteem  and  love  it,  if,  so  far  as  his  small  means  of 
knowledge  extend,  he  can  see  it  to  be  good  and  estimable. 

We  have  thus  to  consider  these  two  important  points  and 
to  answer  these  two  questions :  (1)  In  what  must  consist 
the  goodness  of  the  educator's  will,  which  is  the  moral  rule 
of  the  child  at  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions?  (2)  How 
is  it  good  relatively  to  him,  that  is,  in  such  sort  that  the 
child  can  himself  recognize  its  goodness  and  adopt  it,  of 
his  own  accord,  as  his  rule  of  conduct? 

Section  1.  —  In  what  Way  the  Will  of  the  Educator,  which  is  the  Child's 
Supreme  Law,  should  be  good. 

369.  We  have  already  stated  that  the  child,  when  he  first 
learns,  by  means  of  language,  that  his  parents  and  teachers 
have  a  will  worthy  of  his  entire  respect  and  affection,  cannot 
judge  of  its  goodness  by  any  intrinsic  reason,  ^.  e.,  whether 
it  is  in  its  nature  reasonable  or  unreasonable,  just  or  un- 
just. But,  although  they  need  not  fear  in  him  a  censor 
and  a  judge,  they  must  respect  an  intelligent  creature ;  they 


292  ON   THE   KULING   PKINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

must  keep  watch  for  the  conscience  about  to  awaken  in 
that  infant  human  being,  —  a  conscience  which  will  not  be 
true  and  conformed  to  nature,  if  we  make  the  child  believe 
evil  to  be  good,  thus  falsifying  by  anticipation  his  moral 
judgments  and  teaching  him  to  contract  fatal  habits. 

Section  2.  —  The  Will  of  the  Educator,  being  the  Child's  Supreme  Rule  at  that 
Age,  should  he  good  ivith  a  Goodness  that  the  Child  can  recognize. 

370.  Assuming,  then,  that  in  the  rule  imposed  on  the  child 
there  is  nothing  dishonest,  unjust,  excessive,  or  violent,  we 
have  yet  to  find  how  the  child  himself  can  be  made  to 
recognize  as  good  the  will  expressed  by  his  parents. 

Here,  again,  we  must  look  only  to  those  few  means  he  has 
of  knowing  and  judging  it  to  be  good,  and  not  require  him 
to  use  means  which  his  understanding  does  not  yet  possess. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  he 
should  understand  the  intrinsic  reasonableness  of  the  things 
required  of  him,  which  is  altogether  beyond  hini  at  that 
stage  of  development.  We  must  fall  back  on  the  intrinsic 
data  by  which  the  child  will  judge,  and  these  are  the  two 
following : 

1.  The  child  will  judge  the  things  which  are  required  of 
him,  and  which  are  the  general  expression  of  the  will  of  his 
mother  or  of  his  teachers  to  be  good,  if  they  are  in  accord- 
ance with  his  spontaneous  impulses. 

2.  If  the  things  required  of  him  are  indifferent,  that  is, 
neither  in  accordance  with,  nor  opposed  to,  his  spontaneous 
impulses,  he  will  judge  them  good,  because  of  the  idea  of 
a  good,  estimable,  lovable  being  which  he  has  naturally 
formed  to  himself  of  the  being  whose  will  is  thus  mani- 
fested to  him. 

3.  If  the  things  required  of  him  by  the  being  whose 
goodness  he  thus  assumes  should  be  repugnant  to  him,  he 
is   yet  convinced  that  he   should  put  them  before  his  own 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   CONSCIENCE.  293 

sensible  satisfaction,  and  avoid,  above  all,  things  displeasing 
to  the  person  he  loves  and  esteems.  Should  these  things 
be  persistently  and  seriously  painful  to  him,  and  the  person 
imposing  them  give  him  no  signs  of  love  to  feed  his  love 
and  respect,  they  might  end  by  destroying  his  first-formed 
belief  in  the  goodness  of  that  being  ;  but  it  would  be  hard 
to  destroy  it  entirely.  If,  however,  these  hard  commands, 
opposed  to  his  own  will  and  feelings,  come  seldom,  and, 
as  it  were,  accidentally,  there  begins,  in  the  fulness  of  his 
respect  and  love,  that  terrible  struggle  already  mentioned, 
in  which  his  virtue  is  either  defeated,  or,  if  victorious,  issues 
from  it  all  the  stronger.  Before  his  fall,  however,  he  tries 
every  means  of  avoiding  the  contest ;  to  conciliate,  if  pos- 
sible, his  two  needs,  physical  and  moral ;  to  bend,  I  mean, 
the  will  of  his  superior  to  his,  striving  to  get  a  modification 
or  withdrawal  of  the  command.  This  desire  to  influence 
belongs  to  this  period  of  childhood,  and  manifests  itself  at 
the  fourth  order  of  cognitions. 

There  is,  clearly,  no  difficulty  about,  requiring  things  that 
are  either  pleasant  or  indifferent  to  the  child,  and  our  only 
duty  is  to  take  care  that  they  are  reasonable  and  serviceable 
to  him.  The  difficulty  begins  when  we  have  'to  command 
things  contrary  to  the  child's  inclinations  and  spontaneous 
impulses.  With  regard  to  these,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  mother, 
nurse,  or  whoever  has  charge  of  the  child,  not  only  to  be 
sure  that  the  things  are  reasonable  and  of  use  to  the  child, 
but  to  choose,  with  the  greatest  care  and  prudence,  amongst 
these  useful  and  fitting  things,  those  that  are  really  neces- 
sary. 

371.  And,  to  begin  with  the  child's  desire  to  influence  the 
will  of  those  above  him,  it  should  not  be  needlessly  opposed, 
but  rather  gratified  and  yielded  to,  whenever  this  can  be  done 
without  detriment  to  him,  that  he  may  experience  in  this 
also  the  goodness  which  surrounds  him.     On  the  other  hand, 


294  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

he  must  be  taught  by  firm  opposition,  when  the  occasion 
arises,  that  it  is  only  from  love,  never  from  weakness,  that 
he  is  indulged.-^ 

It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  it  is  sheer  inhumanity  to 
demand  from  the  child  what  is  excessively  hard  for  him, 
and  to  treat  him  continually  with  a  harshness  which  must 
destroy  his  natural  conception  of  us  as  good.  Ill  usage  of 
this  kind,  long  continued,  may  harden  his  heart  and  in- 
cline it  to  gloom  and  cruelty,  while  closing  it  to  love. 

But  will  it  be  in  our  power  to  foster  his  incipient  virtue  ? 
Yes,  assuredly,  as  has  been  already  shown  (nos.  227  and 
foil.)  ;  but  here  the  greatest  care  and  thought  will  be  needed, 
to  measure  the  degrees  of  his  temptation.  The  child  must 
be  required  to  pass  the  trial  whenever  needful ;  but  even 
then  care  must  be  taken  that  the  temptation  be  not  be- 
yond his  strength.  The  greater  his  love  and  respect,  the 
greater  will  be  his  power  of  resistance  in  the  struggle,  which 
is,  in  fact,  a  struggle  between  his  respect  and  affection  for 
the  person  he  loves  and  some  sensible  gratification.  The 
amount  of  the  former,  by  which  he  subdues  his  desire,  is  the 
measure  of  the  moral  strength  he  can  exert.  What  sagacity 
is  needed  to  take  this  measure  accurately  !     He  may,  indeed, 

1  Rousseau,  who  is  always  hard  upon  children,  the  secret  of  whose  souls  he 
never  penetrated,  says  that  the  refusal  of  the  parent  should  in  every  case  be 
irrevocable  ;  that  the  no  once  pronounced  should  be  as  a  wall  of  bronze.  I  know 
no  finer  confutation  of  this  excessive  severity  than  the  following,  by  a  mother,  — 
Mad.  Guizot,  in  her  Lettres  de  Famille  sur  V Education,  L.  XXI.  Such  of  my  read- 
ers as  have  read,  or  may  read  it,  will  be  able  to  judge  for  themselves  ;  for  those 
whom  the  book  gnay  not  reach  I  will  quote  a  passage  :  "  II  7i'y  apas  une  mere  db 
qui  je  n'aie  entendu  reprocher  sa  faiblesse.  Eh!  oiii,  certainement  nous  sommes 
faibles,  et  c'est  pour  Ure  faihles  que  le  del  nous  fit  meres.  11  nous  a  voulu  appro- 
priees  a  Venfant,  ainsi  que  le  vUement  qui  le  couvre,  Valiment  qui  le  nourrit.  II 
nous  a  donne  pour  le  comprendre  un  instinct,  des  organes  qui  ne  peuvent  servir  qu'd 
nos  communications  avec  lui ;  une  faculte  de  craindre,  de  souffrir,  de  pardonner  ou 
de  ceder,  sans  rapport  avec  le  reste  de  notre  existence,  avec  Vensemhle  de  notre 
caract^re,  une  faiblesse  qui  nest  que  pour  lui  comme  notre  lait."  The  love  and 
intelligence  given  by  God  to  mothers  is  a  fact  of  a  special  kind,  worthy  of  pro- 
found meditation  by  the  philosopher. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   CONSCIENCE.  295 

be  helped  in  the  conflict  by  caresses,  by  gifts,  by  sweetening 
as  much  as  possible  the  pill  he  has  to  swallow,  and  all 
these  means  are  legitimate  at  that  age,  when  needful.  I 
say  'when  needful,'  because,  otherwise,  it  is  better  that  he 
should  be  left  to  fight  and  conquer  by  himself.  He  is  mor- 
ally the  better  for  it ;  his  virtue  is  strengthened  and  his 
practical  force  healthily  developed. 

Section  3. — How  the  Child  should  he  led  upwards  from  the  Knowledge  of  the 
Goodness  proper  to  the  human  Will,  to  Knowledge  of  the  Goodness  proper 
to  the  Divine  Will. 

372.  The  most  important  means  of  keeping  unwarped  the 
dawning  conscience  of  the  child,  without  which  we  shall 
never  succeed  in  keeping  it  pure,  true,  unfailing,  consists 
in  teaching  him  that  in  God  also  there  exists  a  will,  a  will 
which  is  the  highest,  which  is  supreme  over  all  other  wills, 
and  that  to  it  we  owe  absolute  obedience,  and  must  conform 
to  it  in  all  things,  even  to  suffering  all  things,  and  must 
subordinate  to  it  every  other  will. 

We  must  not  require  of  him  that  he  should  conceive  the 
divine  will  as  wise,  which  is  beyond  his  capacity  ;  but  he  has 
no  difficulty  in  conceiving  it  as  the  will  of  a  Being  supreme, 
absolute,  and  best,  whose  will  must  also  be  the  highest,  the 
most  venerable,  and,  beyond  all  thought,  the  best.  He  is, 
indeed,  as  yet  incapable  of  understanding  the  goodness  of 
God's  will  from  its  effects ;  but  he  understands  it  through 
the  conception  he  has  formed  of  God,  a  conception  natural 
to  man,  because  it  is  natural  to  him  to  conceive  the  infinite 
and  the  absolute,  before  he  can  understand  the  words  or 
use  them  to  express  his  thought.  It  would,  therefore,  be  a 
mistake  to  try  and  persuade  him  of  these  things  by  argu- 
ment. It  is  enough  to  present  to  his  mind  the  existence  of 
a  being,  great  and  good  beyond  measure,  whose  will  is  also 
beyond  measure  powerful  and  good.  Without  any  proof,  he 
will  immediately  receive,  and'  unhesitatingly  assent,  to  what 


296  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

approves  itself  to  him  as  essentially  true,  through  an  ex- 
tremely brief  process  of  reasoning,  which  his  mind,  impelled 
by  the  intimate  laws  of  its  nature,  works  out  for  itself, 
without,  however,  reflecting  upon  it  afterwards,  or  being 
able  to  explain  it  or  express  it  to  others  in  words. ^ 

373.  And  the  first  of  all  means  of  ^communicating  these 
great  thoughts  to  children  is  through  the  natural  and  most 
efficacious  channel  of  language,  which  they  understand  by 
that  wonderful  faculty  of  entering  into  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  others,  which  we  call  sympathy, 

"  We  are  told,"  says  Mad.  de  Saussure,  "  that  very  pious 

1  When  a  phenomenon  repeats  itself  constantly,  it  indicates  a  law  of  nature  on 
which  it  depends.  The  readiness  with  which  children  constantly  receive  and  wel- 
come an  idea  so  exalted  as  that  of  God,  and  their  implicit  belief  in  His  existence, 
are  manifest  proofs  that  this  idea  and  belief  find  support  in  an  inward  law  of  the 
mind.  I  do  not  appeal  here  to  philosophers,  who  speak  of  children  without  know- 
ing them,  but  to  intelligent  mothers  and  observers,  and  to  all  who  have  had  the 
care  of  children  from  their  earliest  infancy,  all  of  whom  will  bear  witness  to  the 
constant  and  most  important  fact  of  which  I  speak.  ''That  which  man  conceives 
most  easily  is  the  unlimited,  the  infinite  ;  that  which  he  conceives  late  and  with  ex- 
treme difficulty,  and,  perhaps,  never  conceives  completely,  are  the  limitations  of 
things."  Those  acquainted  with  our  theory  of  the  unlimited  form  of  being  through 
which  man  attains  all  his  knowledge,  will  see  not  only  the  fact,  but  the  reason  of  the 
fact.  Leaving  the  reason  aside,  however,  for  a  moment,  it  will  be  useful  to  compare 
what  takes  place  in  the  child  with  what  takes  place  in  primitive  races.  The  phenom- 
ena manifested  in  the  infancy  of  races  are  a  reproduction  and  a  confirmation  of  those 
manifested  in  the  infancy  of  the  individual.  In  finding  them  thus  repeated,  we  are 
assured  that  we  were  not  mistaken  in  our  observation  of  them.  Now,  if  we  analyze 
the  immense  inclination  to  idolatry  manifested  in  the  early  ages  of  all  peoples,  we 
shall  see  that  such  a  fact  comes  under  the  psychological  law  of  man's  inclination  to 
see  everywhere  the  unbounded,  the  infinite,  and  his  immense  difficulty  in  seeing  and 
noting  the  limitations  of  things.  This  will  be  better  understood  by  recalling  what 
we  have  said  on  perception,  as  at  first  imperfect,  and  afterwards  successively  per- 
fected (nos.  104-120).  The  mind,  at  first,  does  not  attend  to  all  that  is  contained  in 
a  sensation,  but  is  satisfied  with  learning  from  it  that  a  being  subsists,  and  goes  no 
further,  leaving  the  determinations  of  the  being  undeveloped  in  the  sense.  There 
remains,  therefore,  in  the  judgment  of  the  understanding,  a  being  subsistent  but 
indeterminate  and  vague,  without  any  horizon,  as  it  were.  At  this  stage,  however, 
the  mind  does  not  yet  pronounce  that  it  is  unlimited  ;  it  affirms  nothing  about  its 
limits,  whether  it  has  any  or  none  ;  but  it  easily  inclines  in  this  state  to  judge  that 
the  thing  is  infinite  ;  it  is  enough  that  it  should  be  moved  to  such  a  judgment  by  a 
strong  feeling,  a  vehement  affection,  a  deep  passion  or  an  exalted  sense  of  wonder. 
In  such  cases,  not  only  is  the  entity  felt,  but  a  judgment  is  added  concerning  its 
greatness.    This  greatness  declares  it  infinite,  simply  because  its  limits  are  so  re- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   CONSCIENCE.  297 

teachers  are  successful  in  teaching  abstract  dogmas  ;  but 
may  not  their  success  be  the  result  of  their  piety  rather  than 
of  their  method?  They  influence  by  the  feeling  which  in- 
spires them  ;  they  transmit,  unconsciously,  their  own  fervor. 
It  frequently  happens  that  convictions  are  communicated  by 
means  which  were  least  thought  of.  This  power  of  sympa- 
thy, this  readiness  of  one  flame  to  kindle  another  in  the 
child's  mind,  shows  what  power  women  can  exert,  and  won-  . 
derfully  exalts  their  position.  On  them  depends  the  religion 
of  future  generations.  .  .  .  "When  that  which  is  sacred  to 
the  mother,"  says  Jean  Paul  Richter,  "  is  addressed  to  that 

mote  that  the  attention  cannot  reach  them.  Thus,  the  human  mind  is  less  apt  to 
observe  the  limits  of  things,  in  proportion  to  the  remoteness  of  the  limits,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  greatness  of  the  thing,  especially  if  it  seems  great  to  passion,  which 
delights  in  the  greatness  of  its  object,  and  wishes  to  find  it  without  limitations  of 
any  kind.  AVe  have,  then,  two  psychological  causes  of  idolatry  :  the  first,  ideolog- 
ical, founded  on  man's  facility  in  thinking  the  unlimited,  and  his  difliculty  in 
thinking  limitations  ;  the  second,  moral,  founded  on  his  feeling  of  the  greatness 
of  things,  and  his  passion,  which  desires  them  to  be  unlimited.  In  proportion  to  its 
development,  the  human  understanding  becomes  more  and  more  apt  to  observe  and 
determine  with  accuracy  the  limitations  of  things,  and  thus  finds  it  more  and  more 
difficult  to  divinize  the  things  themselves.  Yet,  it  never  loses  altogether  its  prim- 
itive tendency  towards  the  unlimited,  and,  therefore,  it  retains  the  desire  to  cre- 
ate for  itself  an  illusion,  which  can  never  be  complete,  but  which  can  never  fail, 
altogether  ;  for,  if  the  mind  could  not  produce  some  illusion  by  its  effects,  it  would 
cease  making  them.  It  seeks,  therefore,  still  to  deceive  itself,  but  with  its  eyes 
open,  so  that  it  caimot  altogether  succeed.  I  will  give  an  example.  Cicero  de- 
clares unequivocally  his  conviction  that  the  gods  honored  in  Kome  were  not  real 
gods,  but  men,  to  whom  divine  honors  were  paid.  His  primitive  illusion  had,  there- 
fore, been  dispelled  by  the  progress  of  his  reason.  But  his  daughter  dies  ;  and 
Nature,  re-awakening  within  him,  makes  him  try  to  deify  his  lost  Tulliola,  and 
weave  for  himself  some  illusion,  which  shall  console  him  in  spite  of  his  reason. 
The  words  preserved  for  us  by  Lactantius,  with  which  the  great  orator  sought  to 
justify  this  attempt,  are  as  follows:  "  Cum  vero  et  mares  et  fseminas  compkires 
ex  homiuibus  hi  IJeorum  numero  esse  videamus,  et  eoritm  in  urbibus  atque  agris 
augusth>iim(i  delubra  veneremur,  assentiamur  eorum  sapientise,  quorum  ingeniis  et 
inventis  omncm  ritam  legibus  et  institutis  excultam  constitutamque  habemus, 
Quod  si  nullum  unquam  animal  consecrandum  fuit  (here  is  the  expression  of  his 
doubt)  illo  prqfecto  fuit.  Si  Cadmi  progenies,  aut  Ainphitryonis,  aut  Tyndari  in 
ccelum  tollenda  fama  fuit,  huic  idem  honos  certe  dicandus  est.  Quod  quidem 
faciam,  teque  omnium  optimam,  doctissimamque,  adprobantibus  Diis  immortalibus 
ipsis,  in  eorum  ccetu  locatam  ad  02)inionem  omnium  mortalium  consecrabo."  These 
words  are  taken  from  the  book  which  Cicero  wrote  to  console  himself  for  the 
death  of  his  daughter.    See  Lactant.,  Instlt.,  I.  15. 


298  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

which  is  sacred  in  the  child,  their  two  souls  understand  and 
answer  each  other." ^ 

These  feelings,  transmitted  by  the  intimate  communion  of 
souls,  must,  however,  be  clothed  in  fitting  words.  Nor 
must  we  neglect  to  show  forth  the  divine  goodness  and 
greatness  in  their  effects,  —  not  by  argument,  but  only  by 
affirrning  that  all  things  come  from  God,  that  He  is  the  foun- 
tain of  all  good  to  all  men.^     Hence,  thanksgiving  is  the  most 

1  It  is  the  great  error  of  a  false  philosophy,  which  has  taken  root  principally  in 
Germany,  to  insist  on  giving  religious  instruction  entirely  through  argumentative 
reasoning  and  demonstrations.  This  false  method  arises  from  ignorance  of  the 
nature  of  human  intelligence  and  its  modes  of  action.  The  child,  it  is  said,  must 
exert  its  intelligence  :  so  far,  we  are  agreed  ;  but  I  would  suggest  that  the  diffi- 
culty would  be  in  making  the  child  act  without  exerting  his  intelligence;  for,  his 
nature  being  intelligent,  he  must  act  in  accordance  with  his  nature.  But,  instead  of 
letting  the  child's  intelligence  follow  its  natural  path  of  advance,  an  attempt  is 
made  to  guide  it  by  artificial  methods  into  paths  that  are  not  its  own,  and  it  is  de- 
clared not  to  be  intelligent,  unless  it  abandons  the  laws  of  its  nature  and  submits 
to  those  arbitrarily  imposed  by  the  presumptuous  and  tyrannical  ignorance  of  the 
philosopher.  The  latter  believes  that  he  alone  reasons.  He  sees  in  the  child  no 
other  light  of  reason  than  that  which  he  will  impart  to  him,  on  condition  of  his 
ceasing  to  be  the  pupil  of  nature.  But  the  sagacious  observer,  unlike  the  pedants 
of  whom  we  speak,  arrives  at  the  conviction  that  intelligent  nature  has  secret 
methods  of  its  own,  independent  of  the  arguments  of  human  philosophies,  and  that 
the  child  gets  lost  and  confused,  instead  of  enlightened,  when,  instead  of  following 
these  natural  methods,  those  intimate  processes  of  reasoning  which  carry  him,  by 
a  secret  road,  straight  and  surely  to  the  truth,  he  is  forced  to  adopt  the  uncertain 
and  often  fallacious  arguments  of  the  adult,  as  if  they  were  the  sole  guarantees  of 
authenticity.  Let  those  who,  against  the  higher  feeling  of  antiquity,  would  reason 
out  even  the  catechism,  that  is,  fill  it  with  human  and  scholastic  arguments,  pon- 
der on  these  facts.  The  evil  began  with  German  philosophy,  but  has  now  spread  to 
France,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  poor  ....  catechism  which  is  printed  in  Paris. 
I  hope  that  the  good  sense  of  the  Italians  will  preserve  them  from  being  deceived 
by  the  speciousness  of  a  method  so  opposed  to  the  intimate  laws  of  the  human 
intellect.  Let  me  conclude  with  the  noble  observations  on  this  subject  of  a  Protes- 
tant lady  :  *'  I  have  already  declared  myself  against  the  use  of  proof.  I  would 
banish  it,  not  only  as  hurtful  to  feeling,  if  it  exists,  but  as  delaying  its  appearance, 
if  it  does  not  exist.  I  have  yet  another  motive.  Every  proof  presupposes  a  doubt, 
und  it  is  often  easier  to  excite  the  latter  than  to  dispel  it.  If  the  truth  we  want  to 
establish  were  self-evident,  no  one  would  take  the  trouble  of  demonstrating  it : 
to  justify  the  use  of  a  demonstration,  we  must  bring  forward  the  contrary  proposi- 
tions. We  have  here,  then,  a  double  lesson,  one  of  error,  in  order  to  confute  it, 
and  one  of  truth,  to  stamp  it  on  the  mind  ;  but  the  first  is,  to  say  the  least,  unneces- 
sary, and  too  often  leaves  its  traces  behind." — Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure, 
L.  III.,  c.  viii, 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   CONSCIENCE.  299 

fitting  act  of  worship  at  that  age,  and  children  should  be  led 
to  perform  it  as  often  as  possible.  There  is  beauty  in  the 
short  prayer  which  Mrs.  Hamilton  proposes  to  suggest  to  a 
child,  whenever  he  receives  a  kindness  :  "  My  God,  I  thank 
thee  for  having  made  such  an  one  so  good  to  me  ! " 

By  exercises  like  these,  the  child's  mind  is  led  to  more  and 
more  knowledge  of  the  first  cause  of  all,  the  universal  foun- 
tain of  good  ;  led  to  distinguish  it  from  secondary  causes, 
and  to  prefer  it  to  all  human  beings,  however  good  they  may 
appear,  and,  moreover,  to  enter  into  direct  communication 
with  it.  When  this  most  perfect  being  is  brought  so  near  to 
the  child,  and  becomes  known  to  him,  as  the  origin  of  all 
good,  we  need  no  longer  fear  lest  the  will  of  man  should 
take  a  higher  place  in  his  heart  than  the  will  of  God  :  the 
latter  becomes  the  supreme  rule,  the  former  the  subordinate 
one.  This  is  what  most  concerns  us,  in  order  that  conscience 
be  not  warped  in  its  formation :  this  is  the  aim,  the  first 
endeavor,  of  parents  who  are  truly  Christian,  and  who  desire 
to  educate  for  God  the  beloved  pledges  entrusted  to  them 
by  God. 


SECTION     VI. 

THE    COGNITIONS    OF    THE    FIFTH    ORDER,    AND    THE 
EDUCATION    CORRESPONDING    TO    THEM. 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    INTELLIGENCE    WHICH    TAKES    PLACE    IN 
THE    FIFTH    ORDER. 

374.  The  classification  of  the  cognitions  belonging  to  the 
fifth  order  will  be  easily  made,  if  we  attend  to  the  principle, 
that  the  cognitions  of  a  given  order  consist  in  the  relations 
which  the  mind  discovers,  through  reflection,  between  the 
cognitions  of  the  orders  below  it,  and  by  observing  the 
same  method  of  classification  as  in  the  preceding  orders 
(nos.  253,  301), 

In  addition  to  this,  before  entering  on  the  discussion  of 
a  given  order  of  cognitions,  it  will  be  well  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  cognitions  of  a  given  order  are  not  all  formed  with 
equal  care  or  at  the  same  age  ;  those  only  being  formed  to 
which  the  mind  directs  its  attention,  and  its  attention  being 
aroused  and  directed  only  by  the  stimulus  of  wants,  some 
of  which  make  themselves  constantly  felt  at  a  certain  age, 
while  others  are  felt  sooner  or  later,  according  to  accidental 
circumstances. 

Finally,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  as  we  have  already 
said,  the  mind,  while  working  on  a  given  order  of  cognitions, 
is  not  idle  as  regards  cognitions  of  inferior  orders,  but  goes 
on  developing  these  in  proportion  to  the  pressure  of  new 
wants  and  in  correspondence  with  them. 

We  will  now  go  on  and  point  out  some  indications  of 
the  development  which  the  mind  attains  of  itself,  through 


COGNITIONS   OF   THE   FIFTH   ORDER.  301 

the  fifth  order  of  cognitions,  which  is  generally  sufficiently 
marked  in  the  child's  fourth  year. 

ARTICLE    I. 

PROCESSES  BY  WHICH  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  FIFTH  ORDER  ARE  FORMED. 

Section  1.  — Synthetic  Judgment  of  the  Third  Species. 

375.  The  mental  operation  proper  to  the  fifth  order  is 
synthesis  of  the  third  species. 

The  first  species  consists  in  perception  (first  order) ,  the 
second  in  predicating  the  qualities  of  things  (third  order)  : 
of  what  then  does  the  third  species  consist? 

This  is  prepared  by  the  preceding  analysis.  The  analysis 
of  the  fourth  order  we  have  seen  to  consist  in  the  decomposi- 
tion of  elements  (no.  302),  by  which  the  mind  discovers  that 
a  subject  is  the  result  of  two  elements,  —  the  one,  a  thing  of 
which  something  is  predicated ;  the  other,  a  thing  which  is 
predicated. 

In  grasping  these  two  elements,  as  constituent  parts  of  one 
and  the  same  thing,  the  mind  has  already  begun  to  compare 
them,  and,  therefore,  we  have  said  that  the  process  of  com- 
parison begins  in  the  human  mind  with  the  analysis  proper 
to  the  fourth  order;  but,  on  closer  reflection,  we  find  that 
such  comparison  is  rather  virtually  than  actually  comprised 
in  the  analysis.  Let  us  explain :  the  process  by  which  the 
mind  notes  two  things  in  the  one  subject  present  to  it,  say 
the  substance  and  the  accident,  does  not  actually  consist  in 
the  express  comparison  of  the  one  with  the  other,  but  in  the 
implicit  perception  that  the  substance  is  not  the  accident, 
or  the  accident  the  substance,  although  both  are  known  to 
belong  to  a  simple  object.  Now,  the  perception  that  the 
substance  is  not  the  accident  does  implicitly  contain  the 
comparison  which  reveals  the  relation  of  difference  and 
opposition  between  these  two  parts ;  but  such  a  comparison 
is  not  yet  the  process  by  which  substance  and  accident  are 


302  ON   THE   BULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

decomposed  and  distinguished,  though  the  latter  is  implied 
and  supposed  by  it. 

Here  we  must  note  with  the  greatest  care  an  important 
fact  in  the  human  mind,  i,  e.,  the  double  character  of  its 
processes. 

Sometimes  these  processes  are  carried  on  by  the  mind 
expressly  and  explicitly,  and  then  they  are  easy  to  observe : 
they  constitute  the  specific  form  of  its  activity,  which  termi- 
nates in  that  form,  and  is,  so  to  speak,  shaped  by  it.  At 
other  times,  the  mind  carries  on  the  same  processes  in  the 
most  cursory  manner,  not  looking  for  any  term  or  rest  in 
them,  but  solely  using  them  as  steps  or  means  to  other  pro- 
cesses, which  it  makes  its  end.  The  latter  it  marks  with  care, 
because  it  wants  them  for  themselves  ;  but  it  passes  rapidly 
over  the  others,  which  it  wants  only  as  means  to  its  end. 

Hence,  when  there  is  comparison  in  the  elementary  de- 
composition of  a  subject,  the  mind  makes  it  rapidly,  im- 
perfectly, and  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  necessary  step  to  the 
knowledge  that  there  are  two  parts,  two  elements,  constitut- 
ing the  subject,  and  not  one  alone.  For  this  knowledge  it 
is  sufficient  to  perceive  that  the  one  element  is  not  the  other, 
without  going  on  to  determine  what  are  the  differences  be- 
tween them ;  and,  although  the  perception  of  a  relation  is 
involved  in  knowing  that  the  one  element  is  not  the  other, 
i.  e.,  a  relation  of  diversity,  yet  the  mind  does  not  see  this 
relation  abstractly  and  in  itself :  it  sees  the  two  parts,  but 
does  not  dwell  on  their  duality,  as  such.  Having  premised 
this,  we  shall  be  able  to  understand  in  what  the  synthe- 
sis of  the  third  species  consists,  which  is  the  operation 
proper  to  the  mind  in  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions. 

376.  The  analysis  of  the  fourth  order  having  verified  the 
existence  of  two  different  things  which  combine  into  one, 
the  synthesis  which  takes  place  in  the  fifth  order  follows,  to 
discover  the  relations  between  these  two  elements.     Synthe- 


SYNTHETIC    JUDGMENTS   OF    THE    THIRD    SPECIES.     303 

sis  of  the  third  species  consists,  therefore,  in  determining 
the  relations  between  two  things  w^hich  combine  into  one. 

From  this  definition  it  will  be  seen  that,  in  such  a  syn- 
thesis, the  process  of  comparison  appears  in  express  and 
distinct  form,  not  cursorily  and  accidental^,  as  in  the  pre- 
vious analysis  ;  that,  moreover,  the  relation,^  which  is  the 
result  of  the  comparison,  is  also  seen  in  a  determinate  form, 
and  not  in  a  general  and  imperfect  one,  as  before. 

Not  only  are  subject  and  predicate  bound  together  by 
relations,  but  the  latter  may  be  found  between  any  two 
things  which  present  themselves  together,  and  between 
which  there  is  some  connection  making  the  mind  regard 
them  as  a  unity,  a  complete  object  of  thought. 

With  respect  to  subjects  and  predicates,  the  mind  can 
discover  what  the  law  is  which  unites  them  in  one  object, 
whether  accident,  or  necessity,  or  the  essential  nature  of  the 
thing ;  so  that  the  distinction  between  them  is  one  of  con- 
ception, not  of  actual  truth. 

If  there  are  two  objects,  they  may  be  viewed  together  in 
a  complex  thought,  through  the  relation  of  similarity  or  dif- 
ference,^ of  cause  and  effect,  or  any  other  that  may  be 
chosen. 

1  For  the  distinction  between  comparison  and  the  relations  discovered  by  com- 
parison, see  //  Rinnovamento,  etc.,  L.  II.,  c.  xxx. 

.  2  It  will  be  said  that  to  discover  differences  is  to  perform  an  analysis,  not  a  syn- 
thesis. I  answer  that  even  the  process  of  differentiation  varies  with  the  order  of 
cognition  at  which  the  mind  performing  it  has  arrived.  In  the  fourth  order,  to 
differentiate  is  to  analyze,  as  we  have  seen  (nos.  307,  308) ;  but,  in  the  fifth  order,  this 
same  differentiation  becomes  a  synthesis.  The  reason  of  this  is  that,  in  the  fourth 
order,  the  differences  are  taken  into  account,  but  not  the  objects  in  which  they 
appear  ;  in  the  fifth  order,  the  objects  are  taken  into  account  and  the  differences 
are  considered  as  a  relation  which  connects  them  mentally,  combining  them  into 
one  complex  thought.  According  to  the  first  method  of  differentiation,  the  seven 
colors  remain  distinct  things.  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  think  of  color  in  general, 
and  then  set  myself  to  examine  what  modifications  are  to  be  distinguished  in  it, 
the  seven  colors  become  the  principal  modifications  of  color  in  general,  forming 
a  unity,  and  their  very  differences  serve  to  determine  the  relation  which  exists 
between  each  of  them  and  color  in  general. 


304  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

Section  2.  —  Analytical  Judgments  belonging  to  the  Fifth  Order  of  Cogaiitions. 

377.  The  analytical  judgments  formed  by  the  human 
mind  at  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions  are  of  the  second,  and 
also  of  the  first,  species. 

The  materials  for  this  analysis  are  prepared  by  the  pre- 
ceding synthesis,  ^.  e.,  that  of  the  fourth  order  or  before  it. 
This  will  be  easily  understood,  if  we  remember  that,  in  each 
order,  besides  the  processes  peculiar  to  it,  other  processes  go 
on,  which,  from  their  nature,  belong  to  preceding  orders,  but 
which,  from  special  circumstances,  have  been  deferred  till 
now. 

For  example  :  to  predicate  something  of  another  thing  is 
the  synthetic  process  which  belongs  to  the  third  order,  in 
which  such  synthesis  first  appears.  But  it  is  evident  that 
the  mind,  in  the  third  order,  can  predicate  one  thing  of  an- 
other only  on  condition  that  it  has  :  (1)  the  concept  of  the 
thing  predicated  ;  (2)  the  concept  of  the  thing  of  which  it  is 
predicated.  Hence  this  process  must  remain  unperformed 
in  the  third  order,  whenever  the  human  mind,  having  reached 
that  stage,  has  failed  to  conceive  either  the  predicate  or  the 
subject.  This  would  be  the  case  in  predicating  action  of 
an  agent. 

We  have  seen  that  the  abstraction  of  actions  does  not 
take  place  before  the  third  order,  or,  rather,  cannot  take 
place  sooner.  Thus,  all  judgments  and  intellectual  pro- 
cesses concerned  with  actions  and  agents  are  delayed  one 
stage,  and,  while,  in  the  third  order,  actions  are  considered 
in  the  abstract,  it  is  only  in  the  fourth  that  the  synthesis  by 
which  they  are  predicated  of  a  subject  agent  can  take  place 
(nos.  304,  305),  and,  finally,  only  in  the  fifth  can  the  agent 
be  analyzed,  that  is,  divided  from  his  act,  and  agent  and  act 
considered  as  parts  or  elements  of  one  subject,  which  is  the 
elementary  analysis  proper  to  the  fourth  order,  but  which 
is  accidentally  protracted  and  deferred  by  the  mind  till  the 
fifth. 


ANALYTIC   JUDGMENTS   OF   THE   FIFTH   ORDER.        305 

378.  Now,  this  analysis  of  the  second  species,  but  belong- 
ing to  the  fifth  order,  is  an  operation  of  infinite  importance, 
to  both  the  intellectual  and  moral  progress  of  the  child. 

The  attribution  of  an  act  to  a  subject  is  as  yet  only  the 
recognition  of  a  fact  in  itself  of  no  consequence.  Such  a 
synthesis  appears  to  me  nothing  more  than  placing  action 
in  an  entity.  But  if,  after  uniting  the  action  and  the  subject, 
and  thus  forming  them  into  one  whole,  the  agent,  I  again 
consider  the  agent,  and  distinguish  the  action  and  the  sub- 
ject in  him,  as  two  elements  of  one  whole,  I  open  the  way 
to  discover  their  relation^  every  relation  between  that  action 
and  that  subject.  I  need  but  one  step  more  to  enable  me  to 
arrive  at  a  most  important  truth  in  the  domain  of  morality, 
I.  e.,  that  the  value  of  the  action  belongs  to  the  agent,  and, 
therefore,  that  I  am  bound  to  esteem  the  agent  in  proportion 
to  the  worth  of  his  action.  This  step  will  be  taken  in  the 
next  order,  the  sixth,  in  which  will  begin,  in  the  child's 
mind,  the  distinct  idea  of  the  imputability  of  actions,  and 
the  way  to  the.  formation  of  this  great  idea  is  prepared  in 
the  fifth  order. 

Section  3.  —  Disjunctive  Ratiocination. 

379.  We  may  attribute  to  the  fifth  order  the  process  of 
the  disjunctive  syllogism,  or,  at  least,  the  formation  of  its 
major  premise. 

This  major  premise  may  be  reduced  to  the  following 
formula :  Of  the  two  only  ways  in  which  a  thing  can  be 
(whether  as  done  or  happening) ,  it  must  be  done  or  happen 
in  one  or  the  other.  Now,  to  conceive  this  proposition,  it 
is  necessary,  first,  to  have  the  complex  idea  of  the  two  ways 
in  which  a  thing  can  be,  or  be  done,  or  happen,  and,  more- 
over, to  have  observed  the  relation  of  opposition  between 
them,  —  that  the  one  excludes  the   other. ^     But  we  have 

1  We  are  speaking  here  of  modes  of  being,  not  of  being  itself.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  disjunctive  proposition  with  respect  to  being,  at  which  the  mind,  possibly,  arrives 


306  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

seen  that  it  is  only  at  the  fifth  order  that  the  human  mind 
comes  to  distinguish  two  things  in  a  single  concept,  and  to 
note  the  relation  between  them,  through  synthesis  of  the 
third  species.  Hence  it  appears  that,  previous  to  the  fifth 
order,  the  human  understanding  is  incapable  of  conceiving 
the  major  premise  of  the  syllogism  termed  disjunctive. 

380.  The  necessity  by  which  a  thing  can  exist  only  in  one 
of  two  ways  is  sometimes  metaphysical,  sometimes  physical, 
sometimes  merely  positive,  or  optionally  physical.  That  a 
thing  must  be  or  not  be,  is  an  alternative . of  physical  neces- 
sity, and  the  same  holds  good  of  all  propositions  of  which 
the  two  parts  are  formed  by  the  affirmative  and  negative 
(principle  of  contradiction) .  If  I  take  one  ball  out  of  a  bag 
wherein  I  had  previously  placed  two,  there  is  physical  neces- 
sity that  it  should  be  one  of  these  two.  That  the  child  must 
be  rewarded  or  punished  for  a  given  action,  is  an  optional 
physical  necessity,  —  physical,  that  is,  but  conditioned  by 
the  will  of  the  teacher,  who  promised  the  reward  or  threat- 
ened the  punishment. 

The  child  has  within  him  the  cognition  of  physical  neces- 
sity and  could  never  act  against  the  principle  of  contradic- 
tion ;  but  he  can  neither  express  it  thus  early,  nor  analyze 
it,  nor  understand  it,  if  placed  before  him  as  a  distinct 
proposition. 

The  necessity  of  the  voluntarily  physical  alternative  is  the 
earliest  to  be  explicitly  understood  by  him ;  then  comes  the 
physical,  and,  lastly,  the  metaphysical.  He  must  be  pur- 
posely led  through  these  gradations  of  disjunctive  propo- 
sitions. Propositions  of  this  kind,  containing  more  than 
two  parts,  belong  to  the  subsequent  orders. 

earlier,  i.  e.,  This  thing  (or  anything)  must  be  or  not  be;  but,  although  the  human 
mind  could  never  act  against  the  truth  of  that  proposition,  yet  I  do  not  believe  it 
capable  of  explicitly  pronouncing  it,  or  of  understanding  it,  on  hearing  it  pro- 
nounced, except  through  the  series  of  syntheses  and  analyses  which  we  have  de- 
scribed. 


OBJECTS   OF   COGNITIONS    OF   THE   FIFTH   ORDER.      307 
ARTICLE   II. 

OBJECTS  OF  THE  COGNITIONS  OF  THE  FIFTH  ORDER. 

Section  1.  —  The  Real  and  the  Ideal, 
^.—Numbers. 

381.  The  child,  having  arrived  at  this  order,  can  acquire 
a  distinct  idea  of  the  number  four. 

In  saying  that  the  child  can  acquire  a  distinct  idea  of  this 
number,  I  mean  that  he  can  learn  to  know  all  the  relations 
between  the  number  four  and  the  preceding  numbers ;  and 
the  arithmetic  suited  to  this  age  consists  in  the  study  of 
these  relations.  He  can,  moreover,  clear  up  the  somewhat 
confused  notions  he  already  has  of  higher  numbers ;  for, 
being  in  possession  of  the  number  four,  he  has  a  new  means 
of  attaining  them,  by  adding  successively  a  predicate  to 
four.  What  I  have  already  said  of  the  number  three  in  the 
preceding  order  (no.  308)  seems  to  me  sufficient  to  explain 
all  that  can  be  required  of  the  child  in  arithmetic  at  this 
stage,  and  in  each  of  the  subsequent  ones. 

5.  — Order  of  Value  between  Objects. 

382.  Our  pupil  has  already  begun  to  form  groups  of  things 
for  himself  (no.  309),  and  he  goes  on  with  the  formation 
of  such  groups  in  the  fifth  order.  Those  consisting  of  three 
objects  are  already  easy  to  him,  and  he  can  conceive  them 
distinctly.  With  regard,  however,  to  his  further  progress 
in  forming  these  groups,  we  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  accom- 
pany the  child's  steps  through  this  and  the  following  orders, 
contenting  ourselves  with  having  marked  the  age  at  which 
this  work  of  grouping  begins,  and  the  law  by  which  it  pro- 
ceeds. We  will  note,  instead,  a  new  and  important  opera- 
tion, which  the  child  enters  upon  at  this  age,  ^.  e.,  the 
distribution  of  things  in  a  certain  order  according  to  their 
value,  real  or  supposed,  absolute  or  relative. 

He  has  already,  in  the  fourth  order,  begun  to  note  mentally 


308  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

the  differences  (307).  At  first,  indeed,  he  attends  only  to 
numerical  or  total  differences,  taking  no  heed  of  any  others. 
These  can  scarcely  be  called  differences.  But  he  soon 
begins  to  note  others,  which  become  the  basis  of  the  various 
groups  he  proceeds  to  form.  For  the  formation  of  one 
group  only  he  does  not  require  the  knowledge  of  differences  ; 
but  he  must  have  it  to  form  two.  Following,  then,  on  the 
period  of  grouping  and  the  period  of  differences,  comes 
the  period  of  order  between  several  groups,  or  between  the 
individuals  which  compose  each  of  them.  To  place  one 
thing  or  one  group  before  another,  not  only  he  must  know 
in  what  they  differ  in  general,  but  he  rnust  further  reflect 
that  it  is  this  difference  which  causes  the  one  to  be  preferred 
before  the  other,  to  have  more  value  than  the  other.  Differ- 
ence, as  a  mere  fact,  begins  to  be  distinctly  recognized  at 
the  fourth  order  of  cognitions  ;  the  consequence  drawn  from 
it,  to  the  advantage  of  the  one  and  the  disadvantage  of 
the  other  of  two  different  things,  does  not  follow  before  the 
fifth  order. 

C.  —  Time. 

383.  At  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions,  the  child  is  able  to 
distinguish  the  three  modes  of  time,  ^.  e.,  to  observe  past 
events  and  distinguish  them  from  the  present,  and  the 
present  from  the  future.  This  results  from  what  we  have 
already  said  regarding  the  progress  of  the  infant  mind  in 
noting  time  in  things   (nos.  316-318). 

When  the  child  has  compared  and  distinguished  a  present 
from  a  past  event,  and  has  likewise  compared  the  present 
event  from  one  he  foresees  or  imagines  in  the  future,  he  is 
in  a  position  to  compare  the  past  with  the  coming  event, 
and  thus  to  conceive  the  same  event  under  the  three  forms 
of  time. 

At  this  age  he  also  begins  to  form  to  himself,  —  always 
by   means   of   words,  —  an   idea   of   time,  abstracted  from 


REALITY   AND   IDEALITY.  309 

events.  The  abstraction  of  past,  present,  and  future  is 
based  on  the  events  he  has  conceived  under  two  forms  of 
time  in  the  preceding  period. 

At  first,  however,  the  child  does  not  conceive  the  past  in 
itself,  but  only  as  determined  by  some  marked  event :  such 
as  a  meal  that  is  over,  or  the  past  of  yesterday,  divided  by 
the  setting  of  the  sun  or  by  sleep  from  to-day.  These  are 
the  earliest  determinate  parts  he  learns  to  know.  Hence, 
not  only  should  time  be  spoken  of  to  the  child  in  accordance 
with  these  gradations,  but  it  should  always  be  connected 
with  events  that  make  a  marked  impression  on  his  mind  and 
leave  a  lasting  trace,  as  of  so  many  epochs  by  the  help  of 
which  he  can  fix  his  thought  on  what  went  before  and  what 
after  them,  and  thus  observe  time  in  its  various  forms. 

Z).- Of  the  I. 

384.  I  have  already  shown  that  the  child  cannot  under- 
stand the  full  significance  of  the  monosyllable  /until  he  has 
arrived,  at  least,  at  the  fifth  stage  of  his  intellectual  devel- 
opment (nos.  311  and  foil.) 

In  the  first  he  perceives  only  external  objects.  Let  us 
suppose  that  in  the  second  he  perceives  actions.  In  that 
case,  it  will  be  only  in  the  third,  certainly  not  earlier,  that 
he  will  attribute  them  to  an  agent ;  but  he  will  not  yet  rec- 
ognize that  agent  as  himself,  because  he  has  not  yet  found 
himself  amongst  agents.  At  this  point  he  can  speak  of 
himself  only  in  the  third  person ;  and  this  we  have  seen  to 
be  the  case  with  children  before  they  have  mastered  the 
meaning  of  the  monosyllable  /,  and  also  with  adults,  if 
their  intellectual  development  has  been  arrested  at  a  certain 
stage  by  special  circumstances. 

Not  till  he  has  reached  the  fourth  order,  in  which  the 
understanding  begins  to  note  distinctly  the  differences  of 
things,  will  he   be   able,  under  the   stimulus  of  language, 


310  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

which  his  own  wants  and  a  natural  tendency  help  him  to 
understand,  to  distinguish  himself  from  other  agents  :  in 
other  words,  be  led  to  perceive  intellectually  his  own  funda- 
mental feeling,  the  man-feeling  within,  as  the  author  of  these 
actions.  This  is,  indeed,  a  simple  perception,  and,  as  such, 
would  belong  to  the  first  order  of  cognitions  ;  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  does  not  take  place  at  that  time,  because  the  want 
which  impels  to  it  is  not  yet  felt.  This  want  manifests  itself 
now,  in  the  necessity  felt  of  attributing  actions  to  an  author, 
and,  therefore,  of  attributing  to  that  fundamental  feeling, 
experienced  by  the  human  being,  certain  actions  which,  for 
that  reason,  he  calls  his  own.  The  man  cannot  attribute 
these  actions  to  the  fundamental  feeling  he  experiences, 
unless  he  has  first  perceived  this  feeling  intellectually. 
Henceforward  he  is  moved  to  reflect  upon  himself,  ^.  e., 
upon  that  fundamental  feeling  which  constitutes  his  self. 

Thus,  not  till  he  has  reached  the  fourth  order,  or,  even 
later,  does  man  begin  to  understand  the  monosyllable  7,  as 
signifying  that  substantial  feeling  which  he  has  and  perceives 
as  the  author  of  actions. 

But  even  this,  as  already  said,  is  not  the  full  meaning  of 
the  monosyllable  /. 

This  monosyllable  expresses,  in  addition,  the  identity  be- 
tween him  wlio  knows  and  pronounces  the  /  and  the  acting 
fundamental  feeling  expressing  who  it  is  that  pronounces 
the  I.  It  is  evident  that  this  identity  cannot  be  understood 
until  the  fundamental  acting  feeling  has  been  intellectually 
perceived,  and,  therefore,  not  before  the  fifth  order. 

385.  Nor  does  this  suflSce :  at  the  fifth  order  man  takes 
another  step  in  the  knowledge  of  himself.  Having  already, 
in  the  fourth  order,  arrived  at  the  perception  of  the  funda- 
mental feeling,  by  attributing  actions  to  it,  and  having  also 
conceived  actions  in  two  forms  of  time,  the  past  and  the 
present,  or  even  the  present  and  the  future,  he  now,  in  the 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   THE    EGO.  311 

fifth  order,  comes  to  observe  that  the  acting  principle  felt 
and  perceived  is  the  same  at  both  times,  while  the  actions  of 
this  principle  in  the  past  and  present  are  different.  The 
identity  of  the  I  amidst  varying  actions  and  times  is  the 
new  cognition  which  now  appears,  and  which,  gradually 
becoming  firmer  through  continual  experiences,  increases 
indefinitely  the  knowledge  of  self.  It  is  true  that  this  iden- 
tity is  not  expressly  and  distinctly  conceived  and  aflSrmed ; 
but  it  is  implicitly  felt  and  conceived,  so  that,  from  this 
time,  man  does  nothing  which  involves  a  denial  of  it,  nor 
ever  acts  in  contradiction  to  it. 

Section  %— Morality,  Moral  Principles. 
A.  —  Beginnings  of  Remorse  and  of  Conscience. 

386.  The  moral  principle  which  has  lighted  the  child's 
mind  up  to  this  point,  as  the  guiding  star  of  his  individual 
activity,  has  been  respect  for  nature  and  for  the  intelligent 
will  made  known  to  him. 

This  principle,  become  operative  within  him,  has  taken 
four  forms,  i.  e.,  (1)  benevolence;  (2)  assent;  (3)  belief; 
(4)  obedience.  In  fact,  the  child  naturally  feels  love, 
adopts  the  sentiments  of  those  he  lives  with,  trusts  their 
word,  and  obeys  their  will.  Instinct,  undoubtedly,  helps 
him  in  all  this  ;  for  the  inclination  to  love,  to  sympathy,  the 
tendency  to  receive  what  he  is  told,  without  any  effort  at 
contradiction,  the  spontaneous  activity  which  allows  itself 
to  be  swayed  without  resistance,  are  powerful  helps  towards 
the  accomplishment  of  his  moral  duty,  and  God  provides 
that,  through  them,  duty  shall  be  made  easy  and  pleasant 
to  a  being  too  weak  as  yet  to  bear  a  struggle.  But  these 
instincts  and  others,  whether  animal  or  human,  do  not  con- 
stitute morality,  which  depends,  as  we  have  said,  on  that 
intellectual  light  by  which  the  human  being  sees  the  noble- 
ness and  grandeur  of  the  intelligence  and  will  revealing 
themselves  to  him  as  benevolent. 


312  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

Already,  at  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions,  he  feels  and 
understands  that  he  ought  to  feel,  such  esteem  and  affection 
for  the  intelligent  will  manifested  to  him  that  he  unhesitat- 
ingly believes  himself  bound  to  submit  to  it  all  his  own 
sensual  instincts ;  and  if  he  yields  to  the  latter  he  al- 
ready blushes  with  shame,  hides  himself,  and  is  tormented 
with  remorse. 

It  is  most  important  to  observe  this  feeling  of  remorse 
which  marks  the  child's  entrance  into  the  fifth  order  of 
cognitions.  In  the  fourth  he  has  understood  that  he  is 
bound  to  conform  himself,  no  matter  at  what  cost,  to  the 
intelligent  will  manifested  to  him.  When,  later  on,  he 
infringes  in  action  this  well-known  moral  rule,  and  feels 
remorse  at  having  done  so,  he  has  taken  a  step  onwards  and 
has  reached  the  fifth  order. 

But  the  remorse  then  felt  is  not  altogether  the  same  as 
that  which  will  come  in  the  sixth  and  other  orders.  We 
must  here  take  careful  note  of  this  difference  ;  for  it  will 
help  us  to  establish  the  rules  or  moral  principles  formed  in 
the  mind  at  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions. 

387.  There  can  be  no  remorse  ^  previous  to  the  conception 
of  the  positive  will  of  another  intelligent  being ;  for  before 
that  the  child  can  know  no  moral  struggle.  His  action, 
which  is  entirely  spontaneous,  meets  with  no  moral  obstacles. 
Hence,  his  remorse  marks  for  us  his  entrance  into  the  fifth 
order  of  cognitions.  But  the  remorse  thus  manifested  dif- 
fers from  what  comes  later,  in  not  requiring  for  its  display  a 
clear  notion  of  the  imputability  of  actions,  whereas,  at  a  later 
stage,  remorse  is  actually  the  effect  of  the  child's  imputing 
expressly  to  himself,  by  his  inward  judgment,  the  bad  action 
he  has  committed.  In  fact,  as  we  have  seen  (nos.  384  and 
foil.),  the  child  at  the  fifth  order  has  not  yet  attained  to  a 

1  Refer  on  this  point  to  the  Treatise  on  the  Co7isciencet  B.  I.,  c.  2,  a.  3,  §  3 ; 
B.  II.,  c.  1. 


BEGINNINGS   OF   CONSCIENCE.  313 

completely  clear  conception  of  himself  ;  for,  although  he  has 
come  to  know  that  some  actions  belong  to  that  substan- 
tial feeling  of  which  he  is  conscious,  he  does  not  yet 
know  either  where  to  find,  or  where  to  place,  that  feeling ; 
which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  does  not  yet  recognize 
that  that  in  him  which  judges,  speaks,  imputes,  is,  in  fact, 
that  feeling  imputing  to  itself  those  bad  actions.  Moreover, 
in  the  fifth  order,  he  is  only  generally  conscious  of  the  re- 
lation between  the  acts  done  and  himself  who  has  done 
them ;  he  cannot  yet  recognize  this  quality,  which  belongs  to 
the  following  order ;  hence  to  this  order  belongs  imputation, 
properly  so  called  (no.  378). 

If  these  elements,  which  enter  as  causes  and  integral  parts, 
into  the  remorse  observed  in  adults  who  have  sinned,  are 
wanting  in  that  of  the  child  at  the  fifth  order  of  cognition, 
what  is  the  remorse  he  feels  ?  Does  it  deserve  the  name  of 
remorse,  and  can  it  have  the  same  meaning  as  when  applied 
to  remorse  fully  developed? 

The  human  being,  before  he  has  arrived  at  the  full  con- 
sciousness of  himself,  is  sufficiently  aware  of  the  existence 
of  other  beings  to  feel  that  they  have  a  certain  moral  claim 
upon  him.     This  claim  is  the  moral  obligation^  which  is  im- 
mediately manifested  in  all  its  binding  force  to  the  intelligent 
mind,  before  it  takes  the  form  of  law.^     Now,  if  the  child 
feels  that  moral  claim,  even  before  he  can  reflect  upon  him- 
self, he  must,  as  a  consequence,  feel  a  corresponding  shock  \ 
and  pain  whenever  he  acts  in  opposition  to  it.     This  is  a  . 
beginning  of  moral  sentiment,  which  is  aroused  within  him  in  , 
the  same  manner  as  the  sense  of  the  claims  of  other  beings, 
and  is  independent  of  any  express  judgment  of  imputation 
by  which  he  judges  and  condemns  himself  as  guilty.     Be- 
tween the  action  which  he  conceives  and  commits,  and  the 

1  I  have  sliown  the  distinction  between  laiv  and  oUkiation  ( vis  obligandi )  in 
the  Treatise  on  the  Conscience,  B.  II.,  c.  i.  a.  ii. ;  B.  III.,  Sect,  II.,  c.  iv.  a.  vi.  §5. 


314  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

things  whose  claim  upon  him  he  feels, — say  the  respect 
due  to  their  intelligence  and  will,  —  arises  a  discord  of  fact : 
a  struggle  begins  in  his  soul,  in  the  substantial  feeling  within 
him,  which,  being  all  feeling,  is  dismayed  at  this  contest. 
This  is  the  remorse  which  arises  in  the  soul  as  a  necessary, 
not  a  voluntary,  phenomenon,  a  feeling  similar  to  the  pain 
from  a  wound ;  for  the  soul,  and  even  the  moral  element  of 
the  soul,  has  its  physical  laws,  as  unchangeable  as  those  of 
bodies,  and  it  is  a  mistake  to  believe  that  all  that  happens  in 
the  sphere  of  morality  depends  wholly  upon  the  will,  or  is  as 
impalpable  as  an  idea,  or  as  vague  and  fugitive  as  accidental 
affections. 

The  mind,  in  its  moral  being,  may,  then,  receive  wounds 
and  suffer  pain  from  them,  before  it  knows  itself  or  has  re- 
flected on  its  own  personality  ;  and  this  is  the  remorse  which 
belongs  to  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions. 

388.  Remorse  of  this  kind  belongs  to  the  moral  sense  and 
not  properly  to  moral  conscience;  but,  when  man  arrives  at 
a  higher  stage  of  intellectual  development,  he  immediately, 
if  he  goes  wrong,  suffers  a  remorse  which  is  the  result  of  his 
consciousness  of  wrong-doing. 

Not  that  this  primitive  remorse  is  formed  without  the  help 
of  the  intellect,  —  certainly  not ;  but  the  intellect  does  not 
produce  it  directly  ;  it  does  not  condemn  by  an  express  judg- 
ment, the  fear  of  which  causes  the  inward  pain  called  re- 
morse :  the  intellect  only  recognizes  the  wrong  that  is  being 
done,  so  that  the  feeling  of  the  being  thus  knowing  it  to  be 
wrong  is  shocked  when  about  to  do  it  under  the  pressure  of 
temptation. 

The  remorse  belonging  to  the  sixth  order,  on  the  contrary, 
acquires  a  new  element,  that  of  imputation.  Man  has  thus 
learned  to  know  the  /  as  a  substantial  feeling,  acting,  know- 
ing, judging,  and  uttering  itself.  He  not  only  attributes  to 
this  /,  as  to  their  author,  the  actions  he  has  already  recog- 


BEGINNINGS   OF  CONSCIENCE.  315 

nized,  as  bad,  but  be  imputes  them,  in  other  words,  he  un- 
derstands that  the  /,  author  of  these  guilty  actions,  is 
deteriorated  by  them^  and  hence  comes  the  sense  of  demerit 
and  blame.  The  man  who,  in  this  state,  judges  and  con- 
demns himself,  lies  under  the  weight  of  this  sentence,  as 
under  a  new  evil ;  and  a  new  bitterness  is  added  to  his  re- 
morse, which  thus  becomes  the  offspring  of  his  moral  con- 
science. By  the  act  of  imputation,  remorse  is  enlarged, 
integrated,  and  acquires  a  new  element ;  it  is  no  longer  a 
moral  sensation^  but  has  become  a  real  reproach  or  moral 
blame. 

It  is  true  that,  when  this  other  remorse,  appearing  as  re- 
proach and  remonstrance  from  an  internal  and  superior 
judge,  is  added  to  the  immediate  and  actual  remorse,  it  does 
not  change  the  latter,  but  combines  with  it,  to  sting  the  heart 
of  the  sinner  with  a  double  pang.  The  earlier  feeling  pre- 
pares the  way  for  the  later.  The  touch  of  this  natural  sting 
often  awakens  reason  to  perceive  and  recognize  the  wrong 
and  to  place  it  before  the  mind,  in  such  guise  that  the  man 
becomes  conscious  of,  and  blames  himself  for,  his  wrong- 
doing ;  he  is  led  to  seek  the  cause  of  the  uneasiness  and 
suffering  of  his  moral  nature,  and  finds  it  in  his  wrong 
action. 

We  may,  then,  rightly  call  both  these  intermingled  pains 
remorse^  and  the  later  form  of  it  may  be  considered  the  com- 
plement, or  almost  a  new  form,  of  the  earlier.  If  they  are  to 
be  divided,  the  first  might  be  termed  remorse  of  natural  piety ^ 
because  it  springs  from  the  violation  of  the  moral  principles 
within  us,  and  the  second  remorse  of  conscience^  because  it 
springs  from  the  judgment  by  which  we  impute  to  ourselves 
the  bad  action  committed  :  the  first  is  a  real  relation  (a  dis- 
cord) between  the  J,  as  an  acting  feeling,  and  the  recognized 
claims  of  other  beings  ;  the  second  is  a  real  relation  between 
the  J5  as  an  acting  feeling,  and  the  sentence  of  condemnation 


316  ON   THE   RULING   PEINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

pronounced  by  it  on  itself.  Although,  in  the  first,  there  is 
yet  no  moral  conscience,  there  is  something  in  it  which  stim- 
ulates and  excites  the  conscience,  so  that  it  may  be  called 
the  dawn  of  conscience. 

Hence  we  may  conclude  that  the  great  moral  maxim, 
"Follow  conscience,"  is  not  yet  formed  in  man  at  the  fifth 
order  of  cognitions.  What,  then,  are  the  moral  principles  of 
that  order  ?  What  is  the  new  form  taken  by  morality  in  the 
mind  of  man  at  that  stage?  These  are  the  questions  we 
have  to  answer. 

JB.— Moral  Principles  in  the  Fifth  Order.— Duty  of  Moral  Fortitude. 

389.  The  remorse  manifested  at  this  period,  although 
imperfect,  produces  the  moral  instinct  which  bids  us  fly 
from  evil  and  do  good.  This  follows  so  soon  as  remorse 
can  be  foreseen,  or  felt  in  anticipation  of  the  action.  Such 
an  instinct  is  not  yet,  however,  a  true  moral  formula :  it 
only  leads  quickly  to  a  maxim,  expressing  rather  a  dictum 
of  prudence  than  a  moral  obligation.  Now  it  is  the 
formulae,  the  moral  principles  of  this  period,  that  we  are 
in  search  of. 

To  discover  them,  we  must  return  to  the  order  of  moral 
development,  and  recall  how  morality  made  its  appearance 
in  the  fourth  order. 

We  saw  it  manifest  itself  at  that  time,  as  a  duty  to  con- 
form to  the  will  of  known  intelligent  beings,  at  whatever 
cost  (no.  328).  This  principle  contained  a  kind  of  colhsion 
between  eudaemonological  good  and  moral  good,  between 
subjective  and  objective  good,  involving  the  moral  ne- 
cessity of  sacrificing  the  latter  to  the  former.  But  it 
must  be  noted  that,  at  this  period,  the  subjective  good 
cannot  be  objectively  perceived,  man  not  having  yet  the 
consciousness  of  himself.  It  was,  thus,  the  subject  man,  as 
moral   subject,  who,    on   the   one   hand,    feeling   pain   and 


DAWN   OF   CONSCIENCE.  317 

pleasure,  and,  on  the  other,  seeing  duty,  paid  no  heed  to  the 
former,  but  decided  simply  that  here  was  duty  and  that  it 
was  all.  The  identity  of  the  sensitive  and  intelligent  sub- 
ject can  alone  explain  how  this  subject  could  dedicate  and 
consecrate  itself  to  what  was  thus  prescribed  by  the  intellect 
passing  beyond  the  sense  without  considering  it,  without 
judging  or  comparing  it,  as  if  it  had  no  existence.  The 
necessity  of  obeying  the  command  to  do  right  is  absolute, 
and,  therefore,  the  man  decides  on  that  side,  without  even 
hearing  a  plea  to  the  contrary  :  sense  suffers  and  cries  out 
against  its  pain ;  but  the  intelligent  /  stops  its  ears,  bent 
solely  on  what  duty  demands.  In  this  way,  and  not  as  the 
result  of  any  process  of  comparison,  is  the  will  of  the  intel- 
ligent being,  when  seen  as  duty,  placed  above  all  other  things 
in  the  morality  proper  to  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions. 

390.  In  the  fifth  begin  those  collisions  between  duties 
which  change  the  form  of  the  earlier  moral  theory.  I  say 
'  collisions  between  duties,'  not  between  that  which  is  duty 
and  that  which  is  not  duty,  but  pleasure.  This  species  of 
collision  does  not,  strictly  speaking,  change  the  moral  theory, 
though  it  influences  practical  morality ;  for,  as  soon  as  the 
human  being  attends  to  the  call  of  sense,  refusing  to  be  sac- 
rificed to  duty,  he  enters  into  a  new  moral  condition ;  he  is 
assailed  by  a  new  temptation,  and  requires  new  fortitude. 
The  observation  and  attention  which  is  given  by  the  intelli- 
gence to  the  pain  entailed  by  the  fulfilment  of  duty  adds 
a  side  precept,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  to  morality,  which 
takes  this  form  :  Be  strong  against  temptations.  This  does 
not  concern  itself  with  the  form  of  the  final  duty,  but  rather 
presupposes  it ;  for,  in  the  words  ' '  Be  strong  against  temp- 
tations,'' the  duty  in  the  fulfilment  of  which  we  must  be 
strong  is  not  expressed,  but  implicitly  admitted.  Neverthe- 
less, it  will  be  well  to  assign  to  the  fifth  order  this  precept 
which  commands  moral  fortitude.     Having  touched  on  this 


318  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    0^   METHOD. 

by  the  way,  we  return  to  our  statement,  that,  at  the  fifth 
order,  we  have  the  first  appearance  of  a  certain  collision 
between  duties ;  and  it  is  this  collision  which  changes  the 
formulae  of  moral  obligation. 

C  — Duty  of  Honoring  in  Preference  the  Will  of  the  Most  Worthy  before  All  Others. 

391.  The  rule  of  the  fourth  order  was  that  the  will  of 
the  intelligent  being  should  be  respected ;  but,  when  the 
wills  of  several  intelligences  make  themselves  known  which 
are  not  all  in  agreement,  there  arises  a  collision  of  duties, 
and  the  question.  Which  of  these  is  to  be  preferred?  —  this  - 
is  the  moral  problem  which  the  child  has  to  solve  at  the 
fifth  order.  Some  solution  he  is  constrained  to  find  for 
himself,  by  the  moral  necessity  of  action,  and  this  solu- 
tion becomes  to  him  a  new  moral  principle,  a  new  formula 
expressing  his  obligation. 

Before  we  examine  how  he  should  sol\  e  this  diflScult  ques- 
tion, let  us  see  why  it  presents  itself  to  him  at  this  period 
and  not  earlier". 

In  the  first  place,  he  must  by  this  time  have  come  in  con- 
tact with  several  persons ;  and  it  is  impossible  that  they 
should  all  have  been  perfectly  agreed,  and  all  have  been 
exactly  alike  in  their  kindness,  their  teaching,  their  author- 
ity, in  dealing  with  him.  Moreover,  he  has  already  learned 
that  there  is  a  Supreme  Being,  and  a  supreme  will  excellent 
and  perfect  above  all,  and  he  has  come  to  distinguish, 
after  some  fashion,  between  this  most  excellent  will  and 
that  of  others  whose  goodness  is  limited.  In  the  second 
place,  he  not  only  began,  in  the  fifth  order,  to  distinguish  the 
differences  of  things,  but  to  place  them  in  a  sort  of  order 
of  value  as  between  themselves,  at  any  rate,  as  between  any 
two  (no.  381). 

This  order  between  the  things  contemplated  did  not  exist 
for  him  at  an  earlier  period,  and,  therefore,  he  was  unable 


DAWN   OF   CONSCIENCE.  319 

to  assign  their  relative  places  to  the  intelligent  wills  which 
claimed  his  respect,  and  could  give  a  preference  to  one  over 
the  others  only  by  a  spontaneous  and  instinctive  impulse, 
apart  from  any  reason  for  it.  But  at  the  fifth  order  he  is 
capable  of  a  rational  preference.     How  will  he  exercise  it? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  will  deem  that  will  to  be 
preferred  as  worthiest  which  is  the  kindest,  the  most  benefi- 
cent. It  was  the  intrinsic  goodness  and  dignity  of  the 
intelligence  which  first  revealed  to  the  child  how  essentially 
lovable  and  venerable  is  the  intelligent  will.  It  is  evident 
that  the  different  degrees  in  which  intelligent  goodness  man- 
ifests itself  to  him  will  determine  and  prescribe  the  degrees 
of  his  love  and  respect.  This  rule  of  the  degrees  of  good- 
ness conferring  their  relative  worth  on  the  wills  of  intelligent 
beings  is  complete,  absolute,  and  immutable.  Goodness  in- 
cludes intelligence,  for  intelligence  is  the  condition  and 
beginning  of  goodness  ;  it  is  good  of  a  supremely  noble  kind 
of  goodness ;  it  includes  wisdom,  and,  above  all,  it  includes 
voluntary  goodness. 

But  the  application  of  the  rule  must  vary ;  for  there  is 
variety  in  the  means  possessed  by  the  child  for  measuring 
goodness  and  its  degrees.  He  is  liable  to  error  in  judging 
the  degree  of  goodness  and  worth  in  wills  opposed  to  his 
and  requiring  his  submission ;  but  his  judgment,  though 
wrong  in  itself,  may  be  right  in  regard  to  him.  It  is  always 
right  when  he  takes  into  consideration  all  the  degrees  of 
goodness  known  to  him  :  in  one  word,  what  he  must  measure 
is  not  the  whole  goodness  of  intelligent  wills,  but  all  that 
portion  of  it  which  is  communicated  and  made  manifest  to 
him. 

392.  It  is,  however,  very  possible  that  the  judgment  he 
pronounces  at  that  age  will  be  partial  and  unjust,  and  for 
this  reason  :  When  the  child  first  bows  before  an  intelligence 
which  he  perceives  as  external  to  himself,  he  performs  a 


320  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

right  act.  His  mind,  as  yet  quite  neutral,  would  easily 
move  with  equal  inclination  towards  any  other  intelligence 
that  might  have  revealed  itself  to  him.  But  he  very  soon 
attaches  himself  to  the  persons  who  are  habitually  about  him, 
and  whose  tenderness  supplies  his  wants,  and  this  affection 
may  become  partial  and  exclusive,  as  we  have  seen  (nos.  239 
and  foil.)  A  simple  physical  affection  is  certainly  not  in  it- 
self wrong ;  but  it  may  move  the  understanding  to  a  false 
judgment,  and,  in  that  case,  there  is  moral  wrong,  because 
the  intellect  obeys  and  assents,  not  to  what  is  true,  which 
alone  has  a  rightful  claim  over  it,  but  to  the  suggestions  of 
the  will  which  corrupt  it.  If,  then,  the  child's  affection  has 
become  exclusive  and  narrow  from  the  first ;  if  these  limits 
to  natural  benevolence  have  degenerated  into  jealousy,  envy, 
ill-will,  or  other  evil  feelings  ;  if  these  are  not  mere  sensa- 
tions, but  real  volitions,  the  fatal  poison  of  sin  has  secretly 
entered  the  child's  soul,  and  his  understanding  become  a 
corrupt  judge,  his  soul  the  seat  of  falsehood  only.  By  these 
occult  operations,  the  saddening  depravity  of  the  boy,  the 
reckless  corruption  of  the  youth,  the  crimes  of  the  adult, 
who  is  his  own  worst  enemy,  as  well  as  that  of  society,  are 
prepared  in  infancy. 

The  goodness  of  others  is  thus  manifested  to  the  child  in 
two  ways,  through  his  feelings  and  his  understanding. 
Feeling  begets  the  love  of  sense,  which  is  natural  and  inno- 
cent, when  it  is  given  to  those  who  are  the  nearest  and 
kindest  to  him ;  his  understanding  begets  an  appreciative 
love,  which  should  be  independent  of  the  love  of  sense.  If 
it  be  measured  by  the  latter,  the  judgment  is  falsified  and 
error  and  immorality  follow ;  but,  if  it  exist  side  by  side  with 
the  love  of  sense,  yet  remains  unaffected  by  it,  no  harm  is 
done.  The  appreciation,  in  which,  as  in  germ,  lies  the 
whole  of  morality,  remains  sounds  and  true. 

The  possibility  of  this  deviation  from  the  right  track  by 


DAWN   OF  CONSCIENCE.  321 

a  child  of  such  tender  age  will  be  better  understood  if  we 
consider  that  his  appreciative  volitions  begin  even  earlier 
(no.  184)  ;  that  he  has  already  framed  for  himself  abstrac- 
tions from  actions,  and  from  the  goodness  and  excellence 
of  actions ;  that  he  can  attribute  them  to  a  subject,  and 
can,  therefore,  judge  the  subjects  by  their  actions.  His 
judgment  will  be  sound  if  he  does  not  arbitrarily  condemn 
those  whom  he  does  not  know  to  be  guilty,  and  takes 
account  of  all  the  elements  of  good  he  can  and  does  know, 
although  he  cannot  have  felt  and  experienced  them  all. 
Already  two  distinct  things  coexist  within  him,  the  ex- 
perience  of  good  and  the  knoivledge  of  good.  It  is  on  the 
latter,  not  the  former,  that  his  judgment  should  be  formed. 
393.  And  here  let  us  note  that,  as  soon  as  the  child 
comes  to  know  an  intelligence,  he  forms  a  certain  idea  of 
it,  as  unlimited  and  infinite  in  its  dignity  and  goodness. 
But  this  idea  of  its  goodness  is  perpetually  being  lessened, 
whether  from  painful  effects  arising  to  himself  from  that 
intelligence,  or  from  his  affections  being  set  on  some  one 
finite  intelligence  and,  therefore,  withdrawn  from  others, 
or  from  imbibed  prejudices  and  errors,  or  any  other  cause. 
These  limitations  are  rightful  in  so  far  as  they  are  true, 
and,  if  true,  they  cannot  take  away  from  intelligence  its 
essential  character  of  goodness.  The  beneficent  effects 
of  the  intelligence  are  not  what  we  love  and  appreciate ; 
they  are  only  the  data  on  which  we  found  our  love  and 
appreciation  of  the  intelligence  whence  they  proceed,  and 
of  which  they  attest  the  goodness.  Hence,  appreciation 
is  not  subjective,  looking  to  the  good  effects  experienced 
by  the  subject,  but  always  objective,  and  finding  its  term 
in  intelligent  natures.  This  being  premised,  it  follows  that 
the  knowledge  of  a  greater  and  better  intelligence  —  such 
as  the  Supreme  Intelligence  —  should  lead  us  to  a  liigher 
appreciation  of  it,  even   tliough  we  should  not  experience 


322  ON   THE   EULING   PRINCIPLE   OP   METHOD. 

its  effects.  It  is,  as  we  have  said,  the  potency  of  goodness, 
rather  than  its  effects  with  regard  to  us,  that  we  ought  to 
love :  it  is  the  dignity  of  the  intelligent  being,  rather  than 
the  accidental  benefits  it  confers,  which  is  the  object  of 
the  moral  act  of  appreciation. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  the  amount  of  goodness 
we  experience  is  one  means  of  helping  us  to  recognize  the 
dignity  and  excellence  of  the  intelligent,  beneficent  being. 
Let  us  see,  then,  what  is  the  child's  moral  principle  at  that 
age ;  which  is  the  variable  and  which  the  invariable  part 
of  his  morality. 

The  principle  and  invariable  part  of  the  morality  of  a 
child  at  the  fifth  period  is  this : 

He  esteems  intelligent  beings  according  to  their  dignity. 

I  say  '  of  their  dignity,'  not  '  of  their  goodness,'  solely 
to  indicate  that  the  object  of  moral  esteem  is  found  not  in 
the  effects  of  goodness,  but  in  the  cause  of  those  effects, 
which  has  such  an  intrinsic  goodness  that  it  may  be  fitly 
termed  dignity  and  excellence. 

This  principle  to  which  the  child  has  attained,  though  he 
is  unable  to  put  it  into  words,  is  so  perfect  and  complete 
that  it  will  never  fail  him,  however  long  he  may  live  and 
whatever  may  be  his  future  development.  He  will  never 
change  his  earlier  moral  principles,  be  it  observed ;  he  will 
only  round  and  complete  them. 

394.  But,  this  principle  being  safe,  there  remains  a  vari- 
able part  in  the  child's  morality  which  is  found  wholly  in 
the  applications  he  has  to  make  of  the  principle. 

It  is  evident  that,  to  apply  it,  he  must  first  determine 
the  degrees  of  dignity  belonging  to  the  intelligent  beings 
known  to  him.  But,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  data 
he  possesses  for  this  judgment  vary.  Hence,  the  older  he 
grows,  the  better  he  will  be  able  to  form  a  right  judgment 
as   to   the   degrees  of   dignity  belonging   to  the   intelligent 


BEGINNING   OF   ABSTKACT   MORAL    PRINCIPLES.        323 

beings  he  is  bound  to  honor,  and  which  of  them  is  to  be 
preferred  before  others.  He  is  thus  led  to  a  successive 
modification  in  the  form  of  his  morality. 

i?.— Beginning  of  Abstract  Moral  Principles,  as  distinguished  from  the  Concrete. 

395.  The  period  at  which  the  child  begins  to  perceive 
that  he  must  compare  together  the  various  intelligences 
known  to  him  and  their  respective  wills,  so  that  in  the 
conflict  of  duties,  he  may  choose  the  highest,  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  in  his  moral  life,  and  deserves  that  we 
should  pause  a  moment  to  consider  and  reflect  upon  it. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  observe  that  this  is  the  period 
when  the  mind  passes  from  concrete  moral  principles  to 
abstract  or  ideal  principles.  This  is  a  passage  of  infinite 
importance.     Let  us  try  to  form  a  clear  idea  of  it. 

That  an  intelligent  being,  on  first  perceiving  or  recogniz- 
ing another  intelligent  being,  rejoices  and  feels  impelled 
to  love  and  esteem  it,  —  this  is  assuredly  a  moral  fact. 
That  an  intelligent  being,  in  whom  this  love  and  esteem 
have  been  awakened,  should,  likewise,  incline  to,  and  strive 
to  bring  itself  into  conformity  with,  the  sentiments,  thoughts, 
and  will  of  another  intelligent  being,  as  soon  as  they  be- 
come known  to  it,  is  also  a  purely  moral  fact ;  for  every 
act  of  an  intelligent  will  towards  a  being  of  like  intelli- 
gence is  a  moral  act. 

But  morality,  in  this  first  stage,  although  good  in  itself, 
is  as  yet  spontaneous  and  not  voluntary ;  the  will  is  gently 
moved  by  that  human  instinct  which  lies  in  the  very  essence 
of  the  soul,  without  needing  any  previous  deliberation. 

Moreover,  when  the  child  performs  the  above-mentioned 
moral  acts  towards  intelligent  beings,  he  undoubtedly  feels 
the  moral  necessity  of  so  acting,  —  the  peremptory  claims 
of  the  beings  he  perceives ;  but  he  does  not  separate 
these  claims   from   the   beings   that  make   them ;   he   does 


324  ON   THE   RULING   PEINCirLE   OF   METHOD. 

not  abstract  them  into  a  distinct  conception,  much  less 
formulate  them  in  words ;  no,  they  are  to  him  a  real- 
ideal  thing  of  which  he  feels  the  power.  The  nature  of 
the  intelligences  communicating  with  him  is  a  real  effect ; 
the  child's  own  conception  of  it  is  something  ideal.  From 
the  union  of  the  real  effect  and  the  idea  arises  that  which 
I  have  called  the  concrete  moral  principle,  and  which  is 
an  intellective  moral  sentiment  on  which  the  human  being 
acts  through  the  moral  instinct  arising  from  that  sentiment. 

396.  But  the  whole  state  of  things  is  changed,  when  the 
child,  unable  to  conform  himself  at  the  same  time  to  two 
contrary  intelligent  wills,  is  called  upon  to  decide  which 
is  the  better,  and  to  hold  to  it. 

This  choice  may  indeed  be  natural  and  spontaneous,  when 
only  subjective  good  or  sensations  are  in  question.^  It 
may  also  continue  to  be  made  for  some  time  in  virtue  of 
the  moral  sense,  because  the  moral  claim,  felt  by  the  in- 
telligent moral  soul  as  a  spiritual  force,  asserts  itself  on 
the  one  side,  and  makes  the  child  recognize  the  need  of 
admitting  it,  under  pain  of  contradicting  his  moral  nature. 
I  do  not  pretend  to  determine  how  long  that  time  may 
last ;  but,  however  long  it  may  be,  the  moment  must  come 
when  the  question  will  cease  to  be  one  of  affection,  and 
will  become  one  of  appreciation  between  intelligent  beings, 
especially  when  language  has  given  the  means  of  abstract- 
ing from  these  beings  the  notions  expressed  by  the  words, 
good,  beautiful,  etc.,  goodness,  beauty,  etc.  These  abstrac- 
tions are  necessary  to  enable  us  to  establish  a  true  com- 
parison between  two  or  more  beings,  and  to  mark  which 
of  them  has  the  greater  moral  dignity.^  When  they  are 
once  formed,  we  can,  by  their  means,  recognize  which 
among  several  beings  has  most  of  goodness  or  beauty,  etc.  ; 
in  one  word,  which  is  highest  in  being  or  dignity. 

1  See,  for  the  operations  of  spontaneous  ivill,  Afithropoloyy ,  nos.  632-635. 

2  See  New  Essay  ^  nos.  180  and  following. 


BEGINNING   OF   ABSTRACT   MORAL   PRINCIPLES.        325 

It  is  evident  that,  when  the  child  has  come  to  judge 
of  beings  in  this  manner,  the  beings  themselves  and  their 
action  upon  him  have  ceased  to  be  his  supreme  moral 
standard ;  for  he  has  arrived  at  a  higher  standard,  by  which 
he  judges  them  and  their  actions.  This  standard  is,  pre- 
cisely, the  abstract  notion  of  goodness,  beauty,  etc. ;  in 
a  word,  the  dignity  of  the  being. 

397.  Let  us  now  compare  the  two  standards.  The  first 
creates  the  actual  intelligent  being,  making  itself  and  its 
moral  claim  known  to  the  child;  the  second  is  the  ab- 
stract idea  of  goodness  or  of  dignity,  by  which  he  meas- 
ures the  degrees  of  that  moral  claim.  The  first,  then, 
may  be  called  a  concrete  standard,  because  it  is  something 
real,  making  itself  felt,  to  which  the  being  feeling  it  has 
added  the  ideal  element  necessary  to  complete  the  intel- 
lectual perception.  The  second  is  a  mere  idea,  without 
any  concrete  reality ;  an  abstract  notion,  communicated  to 
the  mind  and  not  to  feeling. 

In  the  earlier  moral  stage,  the  standard  or  law  has  no 
separate  existence  for  the  child ;  it  is  identified  with  the 
beings  towards  whom  his  morality  is  exercised.  In  the 
second  stage,  this  law  exists  independently  of  the  beings 
who  are  the  objects  of  morality ;  it  belongs  to  an  ideal 
world,  the  world  of  possibility.  If  no  being  were  yet  in 
existence,  the  standard  we  speak  of  would  equally  be 
conceived  as  necessary,  eternal,  referring  to  possible  be- 
ings likewise  eternal,  and  not  requiring  the  existence  of 
any  real  beings. 

At  the  first  stage,  the  demands  of  the  moral  act  are  two 
only:  (1)  the  doer  ot  good  or  evil;  (2)  the  object  to 
whom  good  or  evil  is  done.  At  the  later  stage,  the 
three  elements  of  morality  are  fully  developed  and  distinct : 
(1)  the  doer  of  good  or  evil ;  (2)  the  object  of  his  good 
or   evil   action ;    (3   and   lastly)    the   standard   or    rule   by 


326  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

which  it  is  done.  It  is  only  in  this  last  case  that  morality 
finds  its  completion,  and  that  its  form,  hitherto  involved 
like  the  folded  leaves  of  a  rose,  within  its  calyx,  is  fully 
developed. 

J?.— Increased  Difficulty  of    Eight  Moral  Conduct,    from  the  Appearance  in- the  Mind  of 
Abstract  Moral  Standards. 

398.  The  passage  from  concrete  to  abstract  moral  stand- 
ards marks  a  great  step  in  the  moral  development  of  man, 
considered  only  as  a  development ;  but  does  it  aid  or  injure 
the  moral  goodness  in  man? 

That  it  opens  to  him  a  door  by  which  he  can  ascend  to 
a  higher  moral  perfection,  and  that  this  was  the  intention 
of  nature,  admits  of  no  doubt.  From  that  hour,  then,  the 
vocation  of  man,  of  humanity,  becomes  more  august ;  every- 
thing depends  on  his  responding  to  it  worthily. 

But  is  it  an  easy  thing  to  enter  this  new  arena  and  to  run 
its  course  successfully?  Is  the  moral  goodness  to  wliich 
he  is  called,  from  the  moment  he  is  in  possession  of  abstract 
standards^  as  easy  for  him  as  that  to  which  he  was  destined, 
when  his  standards  of  action  were  still  concrete'? 

It  would  be  empty  flattery  of  human  nature  to  assert 
that  this  new  and  more  excellent  kind  of  morality,  which 
consists  in  following  the  abstract  standards  of  action,  is 
easier  for  it  than  that  of  which  the  standards  are  concrete. 
It  will  be  difficult  for  man  to  be  good  in  this  second  stage 
of  his  moral  life,  in  proportion  to  the  higher  standard  of 
goodness  by  which  he  will  be  judged.  Let  us  seek  some 
explanation  of  this  increased  difficulty. 

399.  In  the  first  place,  at  the  earlier  stage,  nature  was 
his  steady  and  gentle  guide  :  he  was  led  by  spontaneous 
impulse,  which  always  inclined  truly,  like  the  scales  of  a 
balance,  where  a  simple  scruple  on  one  side  or  the  other 
ends  the  equilibrium.  At  the  second  stage,  on  the  contrary, 
man  cannot  act  at   once   on  the  moral  impulse  of   nature. 


EFFECT   OF   ABSTRACT   MORAL   STANDARD.  327 

Before  be  can  act  rightly,  something  more  is  required  of 
him.  He  must  first  apply  his  abstract  notion  and  judge 
of  the  relative  value  of  entities.  This,  of  itself,  increases 
the  difficulty.  Moreover,  this  judgment  must  be  impartial. 
To  decide  that  one  being  is  better  than  another  requires 
that  we  should  weigh  solely  what  we  know  of  it  and 
all  that  we  know  of  it :  previous  affections  and  sensa- 
tions should  count  for  nothing,  except  so  far  as  they 
give  indications  of  goodness  to  the  intellect.  But  how 
hard  it  is  to  preserve  this  integrity  and  impartiality  of 
judgment  in  the  use  of  his  intellect,  for  man  who  is  not 
pure  intellect,  but  is  full  of  animal  and  sensible  wants, 
for  the  satisfaction  of  which  he  would  always  like  to 
be  backed  even  by  intelligence,  —  I  mean,  by  its  judg- 
ment ! 

If  the  nature  of  man  were  perfect,  without  any  admix- 
ture of  evil,  its  sensations  and  instincts  would  be  confined 
to  their  proper  sphere.  They  would,  perhaps,  produce  ac- 
tions independently  of  the  intellect  (unless  the  proper 
force  of  the  latter  —  the  will  —  should  oppose  them)  ;  but 
they  would  not  propel  the  intellect  itself,  or  attempt  to 
warp  it  into  precipitate,  rash,  or  false  judgments.  The 
two  forces  of  affection  and  will  would  act  of  themselves, 
side  by  side,  and  thus,  the  judgment  of  the  understanding 
remaining  uncorrupted,  there  would  be  no  immorality. 

But  the  actual  fact  is  too  often  the  opposite  of  this. 
Man  has  feelings,  and  becomes  the  slave  of  his  feelings ; 
he  is  not  satisfied  unless  he  can  press  the  understanding 
into  their  service  also ;  and  thus  he  compels  his  reason  to 
pronounce  in  their  favor,  without  examining,  or  even  seeing, 
the  truth. 

The  judgment,  thus  urged  to  pronounce,  before  a  matter 
is  made  clear,  can  be  preserved  from  error  only  by  a  great 


328  ON   THE   EULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

practical  bent  in  favor  of  truth  and  virtue.^  This  may 
show  itself  and  be'  cultivated  in  earliest  infancy,  even 
before  the  struggle  begins ;  but,  if  this  is  neglected,  there 
comes  a  time  when  the  child  has,  on  one  side,  an  abstract 
standard,  according  to  which  he  should  judge  ;  on  the  other, 
stronger  passions,  which  clamor  for  judgment  in  their  favor. 
The  former  shows  him  the  way,  but  does  not  impel  hirii 
into  it ;  the  latter  impel  him,  but  hide  from  him  the  right 
way,  and  he  is  without  natural  strength  to  resist  their 
incitements. 

F.  — Difficulty  of  Perfect  Truthfulness  for  the  Child. 

400.  We  have  now  the  explanation  of  the  great  difficulty 
which  children  have  in  keeping  steadily  to  truth  in  their 
statements. 

Mme.  de  Saussure  observes  that  "every  action  which 
does  no  immediate  harm  to  any  one  seems  innocent  to  the 
child."  ^  The  reason  is  that,  to  recognize  the  guilt  of  an 
action  which  harms  no  one,  the  child  has  to  use  an  ideal 
standard  ;  whereas,  to  recognize  the  guilt  of  an  action  which 
inflicts  pain  requires  only  a  concrete  standard.  But  an  ideal 
standard  escapes  his  attention  and  makes  little  impression 
upon  him ;  whereas  a  concrete  standard  moves  him  effect- 
ually. 

Let  us  apply  this  general  principle  to  the  particular  case 
of  veracity,  which  stands  thus  :  "  Children  who  are  so  frank, 
so  naive,  are  not  always  quite  truthful ;  they  dissemble  and 
exhibit  a  singular  mixture  of  cunning  and  openness.  Sym- 
pathy, that   instinct   which  has   so   marvelously  developed 

1  The  standard  or  law  is,  in  itself,  an  idea  and,  as  such,  it  can  guide,  but  not 
impel,  a  man.  The  force  which  impels  man  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  idea 
is  found  in  the  energy  of  his  will,  which  is  drawn  out  by  the  beings  in  whose 
favor  the  abstract  law  has  pronounced.  The  concrete  standard,  then,  is  not 
excluded,  but  rather  remains,  as  a  well-spring  whence  man  draws  his  practical 
moral  force.  — See,  for  the  full  exposition  of  this  doctrine,  the  Storia  Com- 
parafiva  e  Criticadei  Sist^mi  intomo  al  Pf'mcijpio  delta  Morale,  C.  V.,  a.  vi. 
«    L.  III.,  c.  vi. 


TRUTHFULNESS.  329 

them,  tends  rather  to  mislead  them  in  the  use  of  language. 
In  very  early  childhood,  they  consider  it  ratlier  as  meant  for 
amusement,  or  for  obtaining  what  they  want,  than  for  ex- 
pressing truth,  of  which  they  have  little  idea.  Why  should 
the  child  make  his  words  agree  with  facts?  What  is  the 
past,  the  historical  truth,  to  him?  He  scarcely  remembers  it. 
What  interests  him  is  to  be  fondled,  to  get  what  he  wants. 
You  may  cross-question  him,  as  much  as  you  like,  as  to  what 
he  has  done ;  he  will  give  you  no  other  answer  than  the  one 
he  thinks  you  wish  for.  I  have  done  what  would  please  you^ 
would  be  his  natural  answer  at  two  years  old.^  ...  A  kind 
of  cunning  seems  innate  in  children  :  when  they  have  learned 
to  avoid  falsehood  in  speech,  they  deceive  in  action.  It 
is  even  a  very  complicated  form  of  artifice.  Yet  the  poor 
children  do  not  make  very  profound  combinations ;  but 
they  seem  born  with  certain  instincts  of  hypocrisy,  quick 
and  subtle  at  the  same  time."^ 

These  facts  show  how  small  is  the  influence  of  the  ab- 
stract standard  on  the  mind  of  children. 

When  truthfulness  is  at  one  with  sympathy,  ^.  e.,  with 
the  instinctive  benevolence  towards  others,  it  is  preserved. 
It  is  in  that  case  that  the  child  appears  so  frank  and  ingen- 
uous. Even  when  truthfulness  is  not  actually  opposed  to 
sympathy,  though  not  aided  by  it,  it  retains  some  power 
over  the  child :  he  quite  understands  that  words  should 
express  what  is  really  thought,  that  this  is  tacitly  agreed 
upon  among  men,  and  that  whosoever  opens  his  mouth  to 

1  The  same  habit  of  untruth  is  found  in  savages;  but,  in  these,  theres  is  al- 
ready a  developed  selfishness,  which  does  not  exist  in  the  child  of  two  years  old, 
who  obeys  his  instincts  rather  than  his  false  judgments.  The  savage  deceives  the 
stranger  who  asks  his  way,  though  he  knows  it  will  be  a  serious  injury  to  him  to  Ibe 
put  on  the  wrong  track.  He  cares  nothing  for  the  injury;  he  desires  and  intends  it 
rather:  he  cares  only  for  his  own  interest,  at  whatever  cost.  The  child  would  re- 
coil from  it,  if  he  saw  that  his  fib  would  injure  his  mother,  from  whom  he  wants  to 
get  a  sugar-plum  or  a  toy. 

2  Mme.  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  !▼. 


330  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

speak,  is,  by  that  act,  under  an  obligation  to  observe  this 
agreement,  and  to  use  words  to  express  what  is  true. 

But  all  this  gets  confused  in  the  child's  mind,  or,  at  least, 
loses  power  over  his  will,  when  a  sympathetic  affection,  or 
a  sensation  of  any  kind,  comes  into  collision  with  the  rule 
of  veracity.  It  often  happens  that  he  then  finds  two  moral 
standards  at  issue,  the  one  concrete,  that  of  benevolence, 
the  other  abstract,  that  of  veracity.  The  first  prevails  over 
the  second,  although  the  second  has  far  the  greater  authority 
in  itself. 

401.  Truthfulness  has  two  reasons  to  recommend  it.  The 
one  is  its  general  utility  to  mankind  ;  the  other,  the  intrinsic 
value  of  truth ;  and  the  latter  is  the  direct  and  intrinsic 
reason. 

The  principle  of  general  utility  to  mankind  is  included 
in  the  principle  of  benevolence  already  known  to  the  child ; 
but  he  cannot  take  it  into  calculation  ;  and,  even  if  he  could 
in  some  degree,  yet  as  soon  as  he  found  it  clashing  with 
a  present  and  felt  utility,  the  more  ideal  and  general  would 
yield  in  his  mind  to  the  lesser,  but  concrete  and  immediate, 
utility.  Scarcely,  at  that  age,  has  the  child  learned  to 
subordinate  one  or  two  means  to  an  end  (no.  310)  ;  and 
the  calculation  of  universal  utility,  following  upon  constant 
veracity,  presupposes  the  subordination  and  coordination  of 
a  large  number,  and  of  a  considerable  series,  of  means  to 
the  end  of  that  general  utility. 

There  is  no  great  difficulty  in  immediately  conceiving  the 
intrinsic  necessity  of  truthfulness.  As  we  have  already 
seen,  every  child,  when  undisturbed  and  untempted  by  pas- 
sion, sees  'and  admits  it.  But  this  perception  has  no  power 
over  his  will,  when  the  latter  is  preoccupied  by  his  affections 
for  real  beings.  His  attention  is  absorbed  by  tlie  thing  he 
loves ;  and  he  voluntarily  forgets,  or  rather  leaves  out  of 
consideration,  the  necessity  of  truth,  which  yet  is  ever  pres- 


TKUTHFULNESS.  331 

ent  to  him,  however  he  may  strive  to  look  in  every  other 
direction  not  to  see  it. 

402.  If  we  wish  to  reason  out  in  words  the  duty  of  ve- 
racity, we  may  do  it  as  follows :  Whosoever  speaks  to 
another  tacitly  engages  to  speak  the  truth,  using  words 
according  to  their  current  meaning.  Those  to  whom  he 
speaks  acquire,  by  that  fact,  a  right  not  to  be  deceived. 
This  right  is  of  great  value  to  the  intelligent  being,  who 
abhors  being  deceived,  even  when  he  has  no  scruple  in  de- 
ceiving others.  Thus,  the  child  feels  anger  against  any  one 
who  deceives  him,  by  telling  him  what  is  not  true,  thereby 
showing  that  he  quite  feels  deceit  to  be  an  offence  towards 
a  reasonable  being,  a  violation  of  the  dignity  of  the  intelli- 
gent being,  whose  highest  good  is  truth,  whose  proper  evil 
is  falsehood.  Therefore,  falsehood  is  sin,  and  truthfulness 
a  duty. 

To  feel  the  force  of  this  deduction  of  the  duty  of  truth, 
we  must  first  thoroughly  understand  that  the  possession  of 
truth  is  a  great  good,  and  most  precious,  to  the  intelligent 
being ;  that  falsehood  is  an  evil  to  such  a  being,  and  deceit 
an  offence  against  him.  It  is  undeniable  that  the  child 
understands  all  this,  but  equally  so  that  it  has  little  power 
over  his  will.  The  reason  is  that  truth  is  an  ideal  thing, 
the  value  of  which,  though  he  feels  it,  does  not  greatly 
impress  liim ;  nor  can  he  sufficiently  dwell  upon  it,  his  mind 
being  naturally  taken  up  with  real  things.  To  the  sublime 
idea  of  truth  the  child  gives  but  a  passing  glance,  without 
being  arrested  by  it :  he  uses  it  as  a  means,  but  never  looks 
at  it  steadily  and  directly  as  an  end,  an  object :  it  is  too 
commonplace,  too  clear,  too  evident,  too  old  a  matter  to 
interest  and  occupy  him  in  itself ;  this  is  the  future  work 
of  the  disciplined  mind,  of  the  heart  chastened  by  the  long 
practice  of  virtue. 


332  ON   THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

G^.— How  the  three  Categorical  Moral  Principles  begin  to  manifest  thems^ves  clearly  at  this 

Period. 

403.  Let  us  pause  here  and  think  over  all  that  has  been 
hitherto  said,  which  will  give  us  a  most  important  result 
for  a  knowledge  of  the  quality  and  tendency  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  child's  moral  faculties. 

Morality  has  undergone  in  his  mind  three  substantial  modi- 
fications, taking  three  successive  forms  ;  but  each  succeed- 
ing form  has  not  destroyed,  but  completed,  the  antecedent 
one  :  the  second  has  completed  the  first ;  the  third,  both  the 
former  ones. 

The  first  of  these  forms  had  for  its  object  and  standard 
the  real  intelligent  being,  and  produced  immediate  benevo- 
lence. Put  into  words,  it  would  be  expressed  thus :  Prac- 
tically recognize  moral  beings  for  what  they  are  (as  towards 
thyself) . 

The  second  form  had  for  its  object  the  will  of  real  intel- 
ligent beings,  their  beneficent  will ;  and  its  expression  would 
be :  Conform  thyself  to  the  beneficent  will  of  intelligent 
beings. 

Lastly,  the  third  form  had  for  its  term  the  ideal  notion, 
the  idea  as  a  standard  of  action.  When  the  man  says'  to 
himself :  I  ought  to  prefer  the  best  among  several  intelli- 
gences and  several  wills,  he  does  not  attach  himself  to  this 
or  that  real  Jbeing,  but  to  the  order  indicated  by  the  idea, 
so  that  this  idea  is  listened  to  in  preference  to  every  incite- 
ment and  attraction  which  may  be  exercised  upon  him  by 
real  beings.  This  form  of  morality  may  then  be  expressed 
thus  :  Do  that  which  the  notion  or  idea  of  things,  by  which 
their  value  is  measured  or  weighed,  shows  thee  thou  ouglit- 
est  to  do. 

These  three  forms  of  morality  are  what  we  term  the  three 
categories  of  morality :  every  moral  precept  can  be  reduced 
to  one  or  other  of  them.     The  first  has  for  its  foundation 


NOTION   OF   GOD.  333 

real  being ;  the  second,  moral  being ;  the  third,  ideal  being. 
These  are  the  three  modes  in  which  being  subsists.  The 
child,  having  arrived  at  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions,  may, 
therefore,  be  said  to  have  touched  the  whole  of  morality, 
since  all  its  forms  have  been  revealed  to  him. 

We  must  refer  those  who  would  inquire  further  into  this 
ontological  portion  of  Ethics,  to  our  Treatise  on  the  Con- 
science^  B.  II.,  cap.  III.,  art.  ii.  and  iv. 

Section  3.  —  Notion  of  God, 

404.  The  child  has  already  begun  to  know  God  as  perfect 
nature  and  perfect  being.  This  knowledge  is  more  and 
more  developed  and  perfected,  as  he  is  led  on  to  know  the 
works  of  God  and  His  commands. 

But,  apart  from  this  completing  of  the  notion  of  God  in 
the  child's  mind,  God  may  become  manifest  to  him  in  the 
fifth  order  of  cognitions,  as  Judge  and  Rewarder  of  good 
and  evil.  It  is  a  great  extension  of  the  child's  thought, 
when  he  comes  to  know  that  whosoever  is  against  God  is 
lost,  that  whosoever  is  on  His  side  is  saved  and  destined 
to  be  blessed ;  that  he  who  disobeys  His  will  incurs  a  fearful 
punishment,  that  he  who  obeys  has  an  ineffable  reward. 

This  idea  of  remuneration,  vividly  impressed  and  kept  up 
in  the  child's  mind,  will  be  a  beacon-light  in  all  storms  of 
temptation.  All  the  attributes  of  God  are  included  in  it,  — 
power,  wisdom,  justice,  goodness,  the  fact  that  He  is  the 
one  good,  the  essential  good,  the  complement,  the  very  sub- 
sistence, of  whatever  is  finite.  Such  knowledge  is  exactly 
fitted  to  the  human  mind,  which  grasps  it  eagerly  when 
announced,  and  admits  it  as  its  own,  as  already  known  and 
familiar  to  it.  Its  truth  shines  so  brightly  that  it  excludes 
any  possibility  of  hesitation  or  opposition. 


334  ON   THE   RULING   PEINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 


CHAPTER    11. 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ACTIVE  FACULTIES  AND  OF  THE  MORAL 
CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD  IN  THE  FIFTH  ORDER  OF  COGNI- 
TIONS. 

405.  Some  other  matters  regarding  the  intellectual  devel- 
opment which  takes  place  in  the  fifth  order  will  be  stated  in 
this  chapter,  on  account  of  the  close  connection  they  have 
with  the  development  of  the  active  and  moral  faculties 
of  which  we  are  now  treating. 

ARTICLE   I. 

DEVELOPMENT    OF   THE    CHILD'S    IMAGINATION,   MAINLY  CAUSED  BY  DEFINITE 
PRINCIPLES  REGARDING  THE  ACTION  OF  THINGS. 

406.  There  is  a  time  in  the  life  of  the  child  when  imagi- 
nation takes  an  immense  and  rapid  development.  This 
happens,  as  a  rule,  about  the  third  or  fourth  year,  which 
is  the  usual  period  for  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions.^  This 
fact  of  the  sudden  activity  of  the  imagination,  which  sub- 
sides again  after  a  time,  has  to  be  explained ;  and  its  reason 
is  to  be  found  precisely  in  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the 
mind  which  has  reached  the  fifth  order  of  cognitions. 

From  the  earliest  dawn  of  life,  the  faculty  of  reproducing 
internally  the  sensations  received  by  the  external  organs 
is  specially  active  and  vivid  in  the  infant ;  but  this  activity 
is  wholly  internal  and  does  not  manifest  itself  outwardly  for 
the  following  reasons : 

The  daily  sensations  received  by  the  infant  are  few  and 
uniform.  These,  indeed,  are  revived  in  his  imagination, 
under  certain  circumstances,  indications,  or  impulses  which 
are  fitted  to  recall  them ;  but  the  infant  has,  as  yet,  no  free 

1  "  L'age  de  trois  oii  quatre  ans  est  peut-etre  celui  ou  les  traits  de  rimagiiia- 
tion  enfantine  sout  les  plus  saillants." — Mm6.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III., 

C.   V. 


GROWTH   OF    IMAGINATION.  335 

use  of  his  faculties ;  he  has  not  learned  to  direct  the  imagin- 
ative power  he  possesses ;  nor  is  he  conscious  of  any  neces- 
sity or  any  object  which  should  induce  him  to  do  so. 
He  remains  altogether  passive,  and  the  sensations  recalled 
and  renewed  in  his  fantasy  are  recalled  and  renewed  by 
accidental  and  unforeseen  circumstances.  Hence,  there  is 
no  novelty  of  combination  in  these  revived  impressions  of 
his  imagination ;  his  former  sensations  are  faithfully  repro- 
duced by  them,  and  no  more.  All  the  immense  wealth  of 
imagination,  acquired  by  the  infinitely  varied  composition  of 
images,  is  wanting  to  him.  But  these  limits,  which,  at  first, 
restrain  childish  fancy,  are  rapidly  outstripped.  Sensations 
multiply,  become  connected,  and  are  repeated  with  intense 
vividness,  and  the  child,  in  proportion  to  his  feeling,  wants 
to  feel  more,  and  to  gain  both  internal  and  external  sensa- 
tions. He  learns  the  art  of  stimulating  for  himself  the 
nerves  which  subserve  the  internal  motions  of  fancy,  and 
thus  to  excite  their  images  ;  and  this  activity,  which  is  at 
first  spontaneous,  rapidly  increases  with  the  child's  inde- 
pendence of  action. 

407.  But  all  this  fails  to  account  for  that  period,  brief 
and  fugitive  as  it  is,  during  which  imagination,  like  a  pow- 
erful sorcerer,  rules  all  that  lives,  all  that  appears,  within 
its  realm.  To  arrive  at  the  cause  of  such  a  phenomenon, 
we  must  consider : 

(1)  That  the  imagination  could  not  create  events,  com- 
pose fables  and  myths,  unless  the  mind  had  already  learned 
from  experience  how  the  beings  in  nature  habitually  act, 
in  other  words,  unless  it  had  formed  definite  principles  with 
regard  to  the  actions  of  things. 

(2)  That,  even  then,  the  imagination  would  not  act  freely, 
if  the  principles  formed  were  so  definite,  so  bound  down  to 
the  reality,  that  nothing  could  be  added  to  nature,  nothing 
could  be  thought  of  but  what  was  altogether  probable. 


336  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  give  imagination  its  full  scope, 
there  must  be  some  knowledge  of  the  modes  of  action  of 
the  things  that  compose  the  universe,  but  not  full  knowl- 
edge, —  only  a  partial,  vague,  and  indefinite  conception.  In 
this  imperfect  condition  of  his  knowledge,  the  child  knows 
enough  to  feign  things  after  the  pattern  of  those  which 
really  happen  in  nature,  and  yet  not  enough  to  prevent  him 
thinking  anything  probable  which  is  not  metaphysically  im- 
possible. The  limits  of  the  probable  are  for  him  of  the 
widest,  those  of  the  improbable,  of  the  narrowest,  dimen- 
sions. We  have  already  seen  that  the  child  has  no  other 
rule  by  which  to  measure  the  absurd  than  that  of  metaphy- 
sical absurdity  ;  and  that  he  is,  therefore,  inclined  to  believe 
as  possible,  as  true  and  real,  whatever  does  not  involve  an 
intrinsic  contradiction,  —  apparent  to  him  ;  for  sometimes  he 
does  not  perceive  it.  Physical  possibility,  which  to  him  ex- 
tends as  far  as  metaphysical  possibility,  appears  to  his  mind 
an  immense  and  quite  boundless  field,  which  becomes  the 
theatre  of  his  imagination.  But  this  intrinsic  power  could 
not  juggle  on  so  great  a  stage,  if  it  had  not  first  learned  the 
art;  ^.  e.,  if  it  had  not  some  previous  knowledge  of  those 
external  things,  and  their  modes  of  action,  which  are  to  be 
feigned  and,  to  some  extent,  imitated.  This  art  is  learned 
as  soon  as  the  child,  having  perceived  external  things, 
begins  to  observe  their  actions,  to  form  abstract  notions  of 
them,  and  to  note  some  of  their  more  general  features 
and  outlines,  which  will,  indeed,  limit,  in  some  degree,  the 
sphere  of  physical  possibility  in  his  mind,  but  yet  leave  it 
infinitely  wider  than  it  is  in  reality. 

408.  Now,  this  condition  of  the  child's  mind  is  exactly 
that  which  answers  to  the  fifth  and  sixth  order  of  cogni- 
tions. 

At  first,  the  action  of  nature  seems  to  him  unlimited,  or, 
rather,  it  scarcely  exists  for  him ;  for  he  sees  only  those  few 


GROWTH   OF   IMAGINATION.  337 

beings  which  have  come  within  the  range  of  his  perception, 
and  which  iiis  fancy,  self -stirred,  recalls  and  repeats  to  him. 
Later  on,  when  he  has  already  acquired  some  abstract  ideas 
of  actions,  and  has  formed  for  himself  some  rough  types 
of  the  workings  of  things,  which  he  begins  to  do  about  the 
fourth  order  (nos.  318  and  foil.),  he  is  in  possession  of  both 
the  conditions  required  for  the  maximum  activity  of  imagi- 
nation ;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  he  can  feign  things  and  facts, 
having  already  abstract  ideas  to  guide  him,  —  the  types 
furnished  by  experience,  —  and,  on  the  other,  he  is  not  re- 
stricted in  his  performance  by  any  narrow  law  of  probability, 
of  which  he  is  altogether  ignorant,  so  that  his  imagination 
carries  him  freely  through  the  enchanting  spaces  of  a  fan- 
tastic world,  where  he  meets  neither  limits  nor  obstacles. 
But  this  happy  condition,  in  which  fancy  knows  how 
to  move,  and  moves  without  an  obstacle  to  impede  it,  a  law 
to  restrain  it,  lasts  but  a  short  time.  The  complexity  of 
real  things  in  nature,  together  with  the  added  observations 
he  is  continually  making  of  their  modes  of  action,  make 
him  aware  of  more  definite  limits,  within  which  the  nature 
of  their  action  must  be  confined ;  the  types  of  action  he 
had  formed  for  himself  and  which  were  mere  vague  out- 
lines, rather  hieroglyphics  than  accurate  designs,  become 
more  and  more  defined ;  their  forms  are  drawn  with  more 
exactness,  they  are  colored  with  more  of  light  and  shade, 
and  at  last  they  receive  the  final  touches  which  bring  them 
to  the  likeness  of  reality.  Every  step  he  makes  in  this 
knowledge,  every  line  added  to  the  picture  he  has  formed 
in  his  mind,  and  by  which  he  completes  it,  is  an  enormous 
loss  to  his  imaginative  power.  He  learns  how  chimerical 
were  most  of  his  creations  ;  he  condemns  as  gross,  puerile, 
and  absurd,  an  infinite  number  of  inventions  which,  in 
his  first  ignorant  simplicity,  were  to  him  most  true,  dear, 
and   even   important.     Thus,  advancing    years   continually 


338  THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF  METHOD. 

destroy  the  idols  of  fancy,  which  cease  to  please  so  soon  as 
their  falsity  becomes  too  manifestly  evident. 

' '  The  pleasure  of  children  in  the  simplest  stories  told 
them  springs  from  the  vivid  representations  of  their  fancy. 
The  images  it  calls  up  are  probably  brighter,  more  highly 
colored,  than  real  objects.  A  story  is  to  them  like  a  magic- 
kintern.  There  is  no  need  to  task  invention  to  amuse  them. 
Take  a  child  as  your  main  actor,  add  a  cat  or  a  horse,  some 
accessory,  in  short,  which  makes  up  a  picture,  and  give  life 
to  your  story ;  your  auditor  will  listen  eagerly :  the  interest 
you  excite  will  be  almost  passionate.  Every  time  he  meets 
you,  he  will  make  you  tell  your  story  over  again."  ^ 

But,  before  many  years  have  gone  by,  your  stories  will 
have  ceased  to  please  ;  to  make  them  interesting,  you  will 
have  to  arrange  them  with  more  care :  the  time  is  coming 
when  the  child  will  demand  true  stories.^ 

409.  This  period  of  the  extraordinary  activity  of  fancy, 
which  occurs  in  children  in  their  third  and  fourth  years,  i.  e., 
at  the  fifth  and  sixth  order  of  cognitions,  occurs  also  in  the 
life  of  humanity.  The  ages  of  fable  are  found  in  the 
history  of  all  races  :  the  East,  Greece,  the  Northern  nations 
all  have  their  myths  ;  the  historians  have  everywhere  been 
preceded  by  the  poets.  This  mythical  period  has  a  longer 
or  shorter  duration,  according  as  the  childhood  of  the  na- 
tions is  more  or  less  prolonged. 

Such  fables  cannot  retain  their  hold  over  a  people,  when 
once  accurate  knowledge  of  the  reality  of  things  has  made 
their  illusions  impossible.     When   the  witches  and  ghosts 

*  Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure,  U Education  Progressive,  L.  UI.,  c.  v. 

»  As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  the  child  does  not  note  the  differences  of 
things  before  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions.  At  the  fifth,  he  is  still  little  prac- 
tised in  the  knowledge  of  differences,  and  this  is  the  reason  of  his  difficulty  in 
distinguishing  the  true  from  the  false.  He  begins  much  earlier  to  observe  the 
likenesses  of  things.  Thus,  it  is  enough  for  him  to  discover  in  a  story  or  an  imagi- 
nation something  like  truth ;  he  accepts  it  at  once.  If  other  parts  of  the  story  widely 
depart  from  likelihood,  these  are  differences  to  which  he  pays  no  attention. 


TRUTH   AND   FACT.  339 

of  the  North  were  substituted  in  literature  for  the  mythology 
of  Greece,  it  was  a  sign  that  the  world  would  put  up  no 
longer  with  the  childish  fancies  of  Greece ;  but  the  mistake 
was  made  of  supposing  that  its  new  demands  would  be 
satisfied  by  another  set  of  equally  childish  fancies,  those 
of  the  North.  The  attempt  was  doomed  to  failure,  and 
the  Christian  world  now  requires  unadulterated  truth.  It 
would,  however,  be  an  error  to  imagine  that  that  word 
truth  means  only  the  real^  which  is  but  a  part  of  it.  Truth 
embraces  a  wider  field  ;  it  has  its  history  and  its  poetry,  and 
both  are  equally  true. 

It  happens,  indeed,  that  a  people  whose  whole  activity 
is  absorbed  in  the  actual  interests  and  positive  concerns 
of  life  become  altogether  disinclined  to  general  theories 
and  to  all  of  grandeur  of  the  ideal  world.  They  go  to  the 
contrary  extreme,  and,  binding  fancy  hand  and  foot,  that 
it  may  invent  nothing  new,  they  condemn  it,  as  the  utmost 
concession,  to  the  mere  reproduction  of  realities.  Not  that 
the  imagination  of  these  nations  wants  power,  but  its  powers 
are  chainsd.  For  the  imaginative  faculty  must,  to  excite 
men's  interest,  produce  a  certain  illusion,  something  which 
shall  be  recognized  as  having  the  likeness  of  truth  ;  but,  in 
this  case,  value  is  attached  only  to  reality,  which  so  absorbs 
the  mind  as  to  be  always  present  and  leave  no  room  for 
belief  in  anything  else.  The  rest  seems  puerile  and  absurd, 
or,  at  any  rate,  no  interest  is  felt  in  what  is,  or  may  be, 
unreal.  All  will  recognize  in  this  portrait  the  likeness  of 
the  Americans  of  the  United  States. 

Note  of  the  Translator. — The  history  and  literature  of  the  United  States  since 
the  above  was  written  by  Rosmini  amply  refute  this  imputation.  The  great  ac- 
tivity of  religious  life,  in  the  Northern  States  especially,  from  their  very  first 
settlement,  should  have  been  sufficient  to  prove  to  him  how  large  a  place  the  ideal 
occupied  even  in  the  hardest-headed  and  busiest  portion  of  the  population,— 
M.  G.  Q, 


340  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

ARTICLE   II. 

MORAL  ADVANTAGE  OF  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  IMAGINATION. 

410.  Even  yet  we  have  not  fully  explained  certain  phe- 
nomena of  the  child's  mind,  at  the  time  when  his  imagination 
becomes  thus  active.  One  of  these  phenomena  is  the  fact 
that  he  often  finds  more  pleasure  in  the  imaginary  than  in 
the  real. 

"It  is  a  matter  of  surprise  to  some  that  children  are 
satisfied  with  the  rudest  imitations.  They  are  looked  down 
upon  for  their  want  of  feeling  for  art,  while  they  should 
rather  be  admired  for  the  force  of  imagination  which  renders 
such  illusion  possible.  Mould  a  lump  of  wax  into  a  figure, 
or  cut  one  out  of  paper,  and,  provided  it  has  something  like 
legs  and  arms  and  a  rounded  piece  for  a  head,  it  will  be  a 
man  in  the  eyes  of  the  child.  This  man  will  last  for  weeks  ; 
the  loss  of  a  limb  or  two  will  make  no  difference  ;  and  he  will 
fill  every  part  you  choose  to  make  him  play.  The  child 
does  not  see  the  imperfect  copy,  but  only  the  model  in  his 
own  mind.  The  wax  figure  is  to  him  only  a  symbol,  on 
which  he  does  not  dwell.  No  matter  though  the  symbol 
be  ill-chosen  and  insignificant ;  the  young  spirit  penetrates 
the  veil,  arrives  at  the  thing  itself,  and  contemplates  it  in 
its  true  aspect.  .  .  .  Too  exact  imitations  of  things  un- 
dergo the  fate  of  the  things  themselves,  of  which  the  child 
soon  tires.  He  admires  them,  is  delighted  with  them,  but 
his  imagination  is  impeded  by  the  exactness  of  their  forms, 
which  represent  one  thing  only ;  and  how  is  he  to  be  con- 
tented with  one  amusement?  A  toy  soldier,  fully  equipped, 
is  only  a  soldier ;  it  cannot  represent  his  father  or  any  other 
personage.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  young  mind  felt  its 
originality  more  strongly  when,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
moment,  it  puts  all  things  in  requisition  to  realize  its  ex- 
pectations, and  sees,  in  everything  around,  the  instruments 


IMAGINATION   IN   CHILDREN.  341 

of  its  pleasure.  A  stool  turned  over  is  a  boat,  a  carriage  ; 
set  on  its  legs,  it  becomes  a  horse  or  a  table  ;  a  bandbox 
becomes  a  house,  a  cupboard,  a  wagon,  —  anything.  You 
should  enter  into  his  ideas,  and,  even  before  the  time  for 
useful  toys,  should  provide  the  child  with  the  means  of  con- 
structing for  himself,  rather  than  with  things  ready  made."  ^ 

The  above  words,  while  describing  the  play  of  childish 
imagination,  treats  also  of  some  of  the  causes  which  tend 
to  produce  it.  Undoubtedly,  the  child's  pleasure  in  free 
activity,  his  delight  in  his  own  creations,  and  in  finding  ever 
new  and  fresh  ones,  capable,  for  the  reasons  we  have  men- 
tioned, of  producing  illusions  at  that  age,  help  to  explain 
the  eagerness  with  which  he  gives  himself  over  to  this  play 
of  fancy  and  imagination.  But  why  do  we  see  no  play  of 
this  kind  among  animals?  They  also  have  imagination,  and 
find  pleasure  in  several  images  ;  but,  as  has  been  admirably 
observed,  when  they  have  once  found  themselves  deceived 
by  imagination,  as,  for  instance,  by  the  grapes  of  Zeuxis, 
they  turn  away  from  all  similar  illusions,  which  are  proper 
to  man  only. 

411.  In  fact,  the  imaginative  activity  of  man  is  not  of 
the  senses  only,  but  of  the  intellect,  —  imagination  being 
directed  and  guided  by  abstract  ideas,  each  of  which  is  an 
unfinished  type,  after  which  endless  other  things  may  be 
created  and  fashioned ;  and  it  is  this  which  makes  the  im- 
aginings of  man  so  much  vaster  than  those  of  animals. 
But  how  could  this  intellectual  activity,  which  accompanies 
the  activity  of  the  imagination,  and  so  greatly  increases  the 
range  and  the  charm  of  it,  be  the  source  of  so  much  pleas- 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  v. 

Note  of  the  Translator.  —  Here  again  Froebel  and  Rosmini  are  at  one,  and 
Froebel's  Kindergarten  system  takes  full  account  of  the  originating  faculty  in 
children.  It  is  one  of  his  fundamental  principles  to  develop  it  and  give  it  free 
play,  and  his  Occupations  furnish  the  materials  with  which  the  children  exercise 
their  fancy  in  the  invention  ^nd  combination  of  lines,  colors,  and  moulded  formg. 


342  ON   THE   EULING   PEINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

ure,  unless  the  objects  which  it  presents  were  in  themselves 
pleasing?  It  is,  then,  not  activity,  merely  as  activity,  which 
makes  the  child  delight  in  the  imagined  objects  ;  they  must 
have  some  other  attractive  quality  which  he  finds  and  enjoys 
in  them.     What  is  the  nature  of  this  attraction? 

If,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  not  the  reality  of  things,  which 
to  him  is  wretchedly  poor  and  narrow,  that  gives  him  pleas- 
ure, it  must  be  the  metaphysical  entity  of  the  things ; 
in  other  words,  he  delights  in  the  object,  as  object,  caring 
little  whether  it  be  real  or  not ;  he  contemplates  and  enjoys 
the  nature,  the  essence  of  things  ;  it  is  by  this  that  he  is 
charmed  and  captivated. 

This  contemplation  is  full  of  delight,  indeed,  but  it  is 
wholly  disinterested,  and  all  the  nobler  that  it  is  disengaged 
from  the  frigid  reality.  It  is  the  instinctive  desire  to  learn 
and  know  the  being  of  things  which  impels  and  absorbs 
the  child  in  the  inward  contemplation  of  his  own  spirit, 
regardless  of  the  things  without  him :  he  is  carried  away  by 
the  craving  of  his  mind  to  find,  as  it  were,  being,  —  as  much 
of  being  as  it  can,  —  the  degrees,  the  intrinsic  order,  the 
forms  of  that  being,  which  are,  in  fact,  the  essence  of  finite 
things,  and  to  feed  upon  it,  as  the  noblest  of  food,  vital, 
celestial. 

The  objective,  the  entity  in  itself  (not  real,  not  ideal,  but 
abstracted  from  these  its  primordial  modes),  is  that  which 
I  term  the  metaphysical  world.  At  this  age,  the  child 
spreads  his  wings  and  flies  towards  it  fearlessly.  His  mind 
clings  to  it  with  the  same  pleasure  as  the  infant's  lips  to 
the  mother's  breast.  This  is  the  reason  why,  down  to  our 
day,  so  rich  in  experience,  novels  are  so  eagerly  read. 
Does  any  one  read  them  because  he  believes  them  to  be 
true,  and  the  events  they  relate  to  have  actually  happened? 
That  would  be  simply  childish.  In  reading  them,  we  want 
to  know  about  human  nature  and  its  modes  of  action.     We 


THE    OBJECT   OF   CHILDISH    INTEREST.  343 

want  to  learn  about  the  human  heart,  to  see  the  bent  of 
passion,  the  inner  recesses  of  that  heart,  which,  beating  in 
so  many  different  individuals,  yet  remains  the  same  in  all. 
In  the  same  way,  we  look  at  portraits  to  know  what  the 
world  of  to-day  is  like  ;  we  care  nothing  whether  the  painted 
image  be  intended  for  Mr.  or  Mrs.  So-and-so :  that  is  a 
matter-of-fact  detail  so  unimportant,  tiresome,  and  foreign 
to  what  we  are  looking  for,  that  to  know  it  would  rather 
annoy  than  please  us. 

412.  The  desire  to  know  things  as  they  are  in  themselves, 
in  their  objective  essence,  rather  than  in  their  accidental 
reality,  is  identical  with  the  desire  for  knowledge.  Knowl- 
edge, in  its  formal  part,  being  nothing  more  than  this,  a  man 
is  not  more  learned  and  wise  for  knowing  more  or  less  of 
real  and  positive  things.  And  this  desire  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful  instincts  of  human  nature  :  the  mind  throws  itself 
into  objective  being,  as  its  proper  good,  as  soon  as  this  is 
possible  for  it,  as  soon  as  it  sees  the  way  open  to  seize,  were 
it  only  a  crumb  of  it. 

This  powerful  tendency  of  the  intelligent  mind  to  con- 
template things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  and  not  as  they 
are  in  the  real  world,  throws  light  on  many  phenomena  of 
human  life.  It  will  suffice  here  to  point  out  the  one  which 
is  most  closely  related  to  our  subject.  This  is  the  ease  and 
the  rapidity  with  which  the  mind  passes,  and  is  compelled  to 
pass,  from  one  to  another  of  similar  things,  that  is,  to  make 
the  one  serve  as  a  sign  or  indication  of  the  other.  No 
matter  though  the  likeness  be  slight,  the  sign  imperfect,  de- 
serving the  name  rather  of  an  indication  than  a  representa- 
tion,—  the  mind  does  not  dwell  on  that  imperfect  reality, 
as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  the  wax  or  paper  figures  ;  it  passes 
on  immediately  to  the  true  man,  not,  be  it  observed,  the  real 
man,  for  the  child  cares  nothing  about  the  existence  of  the 
latter;   he  cares  only  for  the  man  of  whom  he  has  already 


344  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

received  the  idea  into  his  mind  ;  and  precisely  in  the  idea  lies 
the  essence.  So  true  is  it  that  this  spontaneous  passage 
from  one  thing  to  another,  as  different  from  it  as  a  wax 
or  paper  figure  from  a  man,  is  the  result  of  the  instinctive 
force  which  continually  impels  the  mind  to  look  to  things 
as  they  are  in  themselves,  such  a  passage,  if  we  consider 
it,  being  always  the  passage  from  an  external  and  material 
thing  to  an  internal  and  objective  one.  And,  even  when 
it  takes  place  from  one  external  thing  to  another  equally 
external,  the  mind  always  passes  from  the  external  thing 
to  look,  first,  at  that  within  itself,  and  then,  from  this  inter- 
nal thing,  it  goes  on  to  the  other  external  one. 

The  same  observation  explains  the  possibility  of  language. 
Note  that  the  greater  number  of  the  sounds  which  make 
up  speech  indicate  things  as  they  are  in  their  nature,  not 
as  they  actually  subsist.  Now,  how  would  it  be  possible 
for  a  child,  on  hearing  the  sounds,  to  think  of  the  things  to 
which  they  bear  this  analogy,  if  he  were  not  inclined  by  na- 
ture to  rush  in  thought  to  things  as  they  are  in  themselves, 
at  any  impulse  from  without?  Any  one  who  has  seen  a 
school  of  deaf-mutes,  and  the  incredible  facility  with  which 
they  learn  to  understand  things  from  signs,  will  be  con- 
vinced of  this.  The  teachers  have  no  need  to  tell  the 
pupils  beforehand  that  the  gestures  they  use  are  signs  :  that 
is  presupposed  ;  they  know  it  of  themselves  ;  for  nature  has 
taught  it  to  them.  It  is  nature  that  impels  them  to  consider 
all  external  things,  and  not  only  the  gestures  of  their  teach- 
ers, as  signs  of  other  things,  —  of  the  nature,  of  the  essence 
of  things.  But  for  this  teaching  of  nature,  it  would  be  a 
hopeless  task  to  make  them  understand  it ;  for  the  conception 
of  a  thing  as  a  sign,  and,  above  all,  as  a  conventional  sign, 
is  in  itself  so  difficult,  so  arbitrary  in  its  meaning,  and, 
I  may  add,  so  strange  and  wonderful,  that  if  it  had  to  be 
reached  by  reason,  not  by  instinct,  it  would  be  impossible 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  IMAGINATION.         345 

for  children,  idiots,  and  deaf-mutes  to  receive,  retain,  and 
act  upon  it,  as  we  see  them  do  daily,  without  the  slightest 
effort.  Man  cannot  rest  in  the  real.  He  flies  from  it  as 
the  arrow  from  the  bow,  to  reach,  and  plunge  himself  in,  the 
nature  of  things,  which  is  the  object  of  his  intellectual  con- 
templation. Hence  it  is  that,  far  from  finding  it  difficult 
to  think  of  one  thing  as  the  sign  of  another,  he  rather  finds 
it  impossible  not  to  consider  all  real  things  as  signs.  Here 
we  have  the  explanation  of  language,  hierogWphics,  writing, 
mimetics,  symbols,  myths,  all  the  arts  of  imitation,  the 
most  ancient  language  of  enigmas,  the  wisdom  in  parables 
of  the  earliest  peoples,  of  God's  teaching  of  man  ever  by 
signs  and  figures,  the  interpretation  of  every  occurrence 
by  signs,  whether  falsely  and  arbitrarily,  as  by  auspices, 
augurs,  diviners,  magicians  among  all  nations,  at  all  times, 
or  truly,  by  inspired  men,  beginning  from  the  early  prophets, 
to  whom  God  spoke  in  visions  and  signs,  down  to  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  and  the  interpreters  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  who,  in  the  simplest  facts  of  the  Gospel,  see, 
as  it  were,  signified,  moral  and  most  profound  mysteries.^ 

ARTICLE   III. 

MORAL  INJURY  FROM  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  IMAGINATION. 

413.  The  tendency  of  man  to  contemplate  things  as  they 
are  in  themselves  is  essentially  moral,  precisely  because 
it  is  essentially  objective^  and  entirely  forgetful  of  the 
subject. 

If,  then,  the  imagination  developed  in  the  child  produced 
only  this  effect,  if  it  were  only  an  increase  of  the  intellectual 

1  St.  Augustine,  in  his  golden  little  book,  On  the  Way  of  Catechising  the  Igno- 
rant, points  out,  as  one  means  of  pleasing  a  popular  audience,  the  explaining  and 
unfolding  of  such  Scriptural  passages  as  are  mystical  and  figurative  (Ch.  XIII). 
That  the  Christian  plebs  should  have  found  delight  in  this,  results  from  human 
nature  itself. 

2  How  morality  consists  wholly  in  adherence  to  the  objects  of  the  mind,  may  be 
seen  in  the  Principi  delta  Scienza  Morale,  C.  IV. 


346  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

contemplation  of  things  in  their  metaphysical  being,  un- 
doubtedly it  would  assist  moral  goodness,  without  any 
countervailing  evil.  And  so  it  would  be,  if  the  human 
instinct,  which  directs  the  action  of  the  faculties,  had  no 
other  motive  power  than  the  tendency  of  the  intellect  to  fix 
itself  on  the  being  (entity)  of  things  ;  but  it  has  another 
motive  power,  ^.  e.,  the  pleasure  it  finds  in  the  real. 

We  must  remember  that  man  is  a  real  being,  and  there- 
fore tends  to  real  enjoyments.  Although  his  intellect  takes 
pleasure  in  the  light  of  truth,  in  the  vision  of  essences, 
yet  there  is  in  him  another  tendency,  by  the  side  of  the  first, 
which  impels  him  towards  all  those  real  things  which  can 
give  him  pleasure.  Thus,  we  see  that  human  instinct  has 
two  impulses,  the  one  towards  being,  considered  in  itself, 
the  other  towards  real  being.  These  two  impulses  must 
guide  the  action  of  our  minds  into  different  channels.  The 
purely  intellectual  tendency  to  behold  things  in  their  essen- 
tial being  draws  us  away  from  the  real,  with  which  it  has 
nothing  to  do ;  the  tendency  to  enjoy  the  real  brings  us 
back  to  it. 

Hence  it  happens  that  what  the  child  imagines  he  often 
looks  upon  as  the  essential  nature  of  a  thing,  without 
troubling  himself  to  inquire  whether  it  be  real  or  no.  When 
this  tendency  prevails  in  him,  he  starts  from  the  real,  as 
a  symbol,  and  ends  at  the  essence  of  the  thing,  as  that  which 
was  symbolized.  The  essence  is  here  the  end  of  the  mind's 
action ;  the  contingent,  the  real  thing,  is  only  its  starting- 
point  and  occasion. 

But  if,  in  the  real,  he  conceives  something  pleasant,  and 
thus  the  second  tendency  comes  into  play  ;  his  mind  takes 
the  contrary  course:  i.  e.,  whatever  he  imagines,  he  easily 
believes  to  be  real.  In  that  case,  his  mind  travels  in  pre- 
cisely the  opposite  direction ;  it  starts  from  the  imaginary, 
and  arrives  at  the  real :  imagination  is  the  initial  point, 
belief  in  reality,  its  term. 


ERRORS  DUE  TO  IMAGINATION.  347 

414.  It  is  plain  that  we  have  here  the  origin  of  many 
childish  errors  ;  for,  as  the  mind,  starting  from  the  real, 
and  seeking  being  as  it  is  in  itself,  finds,  and  holds  by,  the 
truth,  so,  when  it  starts  from  the  imagination  and  contem- 
plation of  the  entity  in  itself  and  comes  to  see  it  as  the  real, 
it  finds  and  embraces  a  falsehood. 

There  is,  indeed,  an  element  of  reality  in  imagination 
itself ;  for  it  is  feeling  that  is  affected,  and  feeling  is  a  reality 
and  can  be  modified  only  by  some  real  action.  When  our 
feelings  are  in  any  way  affected,  we  conclude  that  a  real 
agent  exists ;  nor,  so  far,  are  we  mistaken.  Our  error 
begins  when  we  try  to  determine  what  this  real  agent  is, 
and  decide  that  it  must  be  that  which  it  appears  to  be. 
This  illusion  is  complete  in  dreams ;  we  never  doubt  the 
reality  of  the  things  they  represent  to  us  ;  for  the  represen- 
tation, i,  e.,  their  action  on  our  feelings,  is  perfect.  Even 
when  we  are  awake,  if  an  image  presents  itself  vividly  to 
us,  we  are  deluded  by  it,  and,  in  spite  of  the  effort  of  reason 
to  undeceive  us,  we  are  moved  as  strongly  as  by  the  reality. 

"Illusion,  when  it  reaches  a  certain  point  in  the  child, 
ceases  to  be  voluntary :  he  cannot  shake  it  off  ^  and  "thus 
a  sense  of  fear  comes  over  him.  As  he  begins  to  doubt 
whether  it  is  not  more  than  play,  he  fancies  himself  on 
the  brink  of  an  unknown  world,  full  of  terrifying  realities. 
Dance  a  rather  large  doll  in  front  of  a  child  of  two  years  old, 
he  will  be  delighted  by  it,  so  long  as  the  motion  is  gentle  ; 
but,  if  you  toss  it  very  high,  making  the  arms  move  violently, 
he  may,  perhaps,  laugh  louder,  but  he  clings  to  his  mother, 
and  his  sudden  changes  of  color,  from  red  to  white,  show  his 
internal  disturbance.  Those  who  have  the  gift  of  changing 
their  faces  by  grimaces  and  gesticulation,  often  amuse  them- 
selves with  the  startling  effect  they  produce  on  children ; 
but  we  may  observe  that  the  children's  pleasure  is  unalloyed 
only  so  long  as  they  can   recognize  frequently  the  natural 


348  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

physiognomy  of  the  actor  through  his  disguises.  If  he  goes 
on  without  interruption,  and  especially,  if  he  keeps  up  one 
of  the  strange  faces  for  any  time,  the  child  gets  frightened. 
The  idea  of  a  transformation,  of  a  fearful  mingling  of  two 
beings  into  one,  takes  possession  of  him :  he  does  not  know 
what  he  is  afraid  of,  yet  he  trembles.  The  possible  has  no 
limits  for  him.  Darkness  may  conceal  monsters  and  preci- 
pices :  the  pictured  figures  may  come  to  life,  throw  them- 
selves upon  him,  and  devour  him ;  phantoms  may  rise  out 
of  the  ground ;  the  road  becomes  a  cavern  inhabited,  per- 
haps, by  fantastic  beings.  As  soon  as  an  idea  presents 
itself  to  children,  they  give  it  a  real,  living  form,  and  a 
vague  terror  conjures  up  spectres  in  their  minds." 

The  free  will  of  the  child  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  state 
of  things.  His  imaginations  and  fears  are  realities,  and 
realities  persuade  and  induce  the  mind  to  believe  in  them. 
Even  if  the  child  knew  speculatively,  and  without  any  room 
for  doubt,  that  his  fears  are  groundless,  that  the  spectres 
do  not  exist,  yet  the  impression  exists  and  the  real  commo- 
tion of  feeling  in  himself.  He  suffers  the  impression  of  a 
reality.  There  is  also  the  tendency  to  believe  that  objects 
are  truly  what  they  appear  to  him.  This  tendency,  which 
supposes  a  being  beneath  appearances,  is  the  offspring 
of  the  intelligence,  which  sees  things  only  on  condition  of 
seeing  beings  in  them.  Hence,  the  mind  sees  them  even 
where  they  are  not ;  for  it  is  the  easiest  means  of  conceiving 
anything  wished  for.  Otherwise,  action  would  have  to  be 
suspended  for  such  length  of  time  as  was  needed  to  discover 
the  true  being  with  which  the  phenomena  are  connected. 

Although  errors  are  thus  produced  in  the  infant  mind, 
we  cannot  yet  class  them  amongst  those  that  are  dangerous 
to  morality. 

415.  Nor  can  those  be  classed  as  dangerous  errors  which 
spring,  as  we  have  shown  above,  from  other  purely  mental 


ERRORS   DUE   TO   IMAGINATION.  S49 

laws.  We  there  said  that  the  mind,  in  every  perception,  not 
only  necessarily  perceives  a  being,  but,  'moreover,  always 
supposes  the  perceived  being  to  be  the  most  perfect  and 
absolute  conceivable  to  it,  given  the  quality  and  quantity 
of  its  cognitions.  This  great  law  of  the  intelligence  is 
modified,  in  its  application,  by  the  state  of  the  mind,  ac- 
cording as  it  is  more  or  less  furnished  with  experience  and 
knowledge  ;  so  that  the  perfectly  blank  mind  of  the  new-born 
child  supposes  the  first  being  it  perceives,  and  that  smiles 
at  it,  to  be  unlimited,  the  supposition  being  uncontradicted 
by  any  other  cognitions,  of  which  as  yet  there  are  none. 
But,  as  soon  as  the  child  acquires  such  cognitions,  he  ceases 
to  suppose  the  being  perceived  to  be  unlimited,  such  a 
supposition  being  contradicted  by  the  knowledge  he  has 
acquired.  His  suppositions,  however,  are  still  as  favorable 
as  possible  to  the  beings  perceived  by  him,  and  he  sets  only 
such  limits  to  them  as  are  forced  upon  him  by  his  growing 
experience  and  knowledge.  He  falls,  therefore,  into  error 
in  this  way,  being  led  into  it  by  the  principle  of  integration, 
and  still  further  by  his  desire  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion,  by 
his  craving  to  know.  If  he  could  suppose  nothing,  but  only 
perceive;  if  he  could  control  the  motions  of  his  intelligence, 
always  aspiring  vaguely  towards  the  absolute,  until  he  could 
see  more  clearly  where  to  place  the  latter,  he  would  avoid 
such  errors.  But  these  errors,  which  will  correct  themselves, 
little  by  little,  as  he  grows  older,  are  not  dangerous  to  moral 
goodness.  The  dangerous  errors  are  those  which  spring 
from  fancy  during  childhood,  when  the  child  takes  his  im- 
aginations for  realities,  not  forced  to  it  by  their  real  power 
over  him,  nor  from  the  intellectual  principle  of  integration, 
but  solely  because  of  his  own  desire  to  find  them  true, 
whether  they  be  so  or  not. 

Not  that  these  fictions  are  entirely  of  his  own  weaving ; 
for,    properly  speaking,  he   does   not,  of  himself,  imagine 


350  ON  THE   RULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

either  good  and  evil,  or  wish  to  deceive  himself ;  nor  is  he 
responsible  for  the  creations  of  his  fancy.  But,  if  the  latter 
be  excited  by  external  objects  acting  upon  him,  then  he  may 
be  deluded  by  them,  first,  in  the  two  ways  above  mentioned, 
and,  later  on,  in  the  third.  A  good  observer  says:  "  Chil- 
dren, left  to  themselves,  may  be  frightened  by  a  real  object, 
—  a  negro,  a  chimney-sweep,  a  mask, — and  recall  it  with 
terror ;  but  they  very  seldom  invent  phantoms  for  them- 
selves. It  is  rare  for  them  to  be  preoccupied  by  an  idea 
which  has  not  been  suggested  to  them."  This  fact  proves 
that  they  are  made  for  the  truth,  and  not  for  illusions. 

416.  To  such  illusions  they  are  driven  by  the  action  of 
external  impulses.  But  to  those  which  are  voluntary,  which 
we  have  declared  to  be  morally  dangerous,  they  are  impelled 
solely  by  their  own  desires  and  affections.  These  regard 
either  the  past  or  the  future,  and  direct  imagination,  so  that 
it  represents  only  that  in  either  which  is  pleasant.  Before 
this  can  occur,  the  child  must  have  the  conception  of  time, 
which  greatly  aids  the  activity  of  imagination,  expatiating 
on  the  things  that  have  happened  and  those  expected  to 
happen.  The  conception  of  these  two  modes  of  time  is 
formed  in  the  child's  mind,  as  we  have  seen,  when  it  has 
reached  the  fourth  order  of  cognitions ;  that  of  the  three 
modes  of  time,  the  present,  the  past,  and  the  future,  is 
formed  at  the  fifth  order,  and  thus  we  see  why  voluntary 
illusions  begin  only  at  this  age. 

These  voluntary  illusions  are  the  result  of  allowing  pleas- 
ure and  pain  to  guide  memory  and  imagination.  "The  child, 
under  this  impulse,  remembers  and  imagines  vividly  what- 
ever gives  him  pleasure,  forgets,  and  has  no  imagination  for, 
that  which  displeases  him.  It  has  been  observed  that  "  the 
child  is  a  stranger  to  the  feelings  of  yesterday.  An  accident 
which  has  been  his  fault  is  a  past  like  any  other,  which 
ought  not  to  be  recalled.     Every  morning  he  wakes  up  with 


MORAL   EFFECT   OF   IMAGINATION.  351 

the  renewed  feeling  of  innocence,  and  believes  himself  fully 
justified  from  all  wrong-doing  by  simply  saying,  '  That  was 
yesterday.'  "  Nevertheless,  when  the  future  is  near  and 
pleasant,  he  looks  to  it  willingly  enough.  He  will  count 
the  days  to  the  holidays,  and  definite  promises  have  a  great 
influence  over  him.  Threats,  however,  have  the  contrary 
effect.  A  distant  pain  is  nothing  to  him.  He  does  not 
believe  in  evil  beforehand,  and  puts  away  the  idea  of  it  by 
simply  saying:  'It  will  not  happen  for  a  long  while.*" 

The  imaginary  hopes  of  childhood  begin  with  the  idea 
of  future  time  and  help  to  form  it ;  for  these  hopes  mark 
points  in  the  future,  as  pleasures  enjo3^ed  and  remembered, 
far  more  easily  than  pains  mark  points  in  the  past.  Now, 
the  harm  does  not  lie  in  the  child's  preference  for  the  pleas- 
ant representations  of  the  past  or  the  pleasant  expectations 
of  the  future,  which  is  only  natural.  But,  that  he  should 
give  substance  to  these  images,  and,  impelled  by  the  love 
of  pleasure,  should  choose  to  believe  them  real,  this  is  the 
error  which  springs  from  an  evil  principle,  and  indicates 
a  mind  already  warped  from  moral  rectitude.  If  we  look  at 
the  way  in  which  the  children  of  great  people  are  spoiled, 
we  shall  find  that  the  evil  comes  of  allowing  them  to  create 
an  imaginary  world  for  themselves,  in  which  they  occupy  an 
equally  imaginary  position,  and  their  thoughts  and  actions, 
starting  from  this  false  idea,  are  continually  wronging  the 
real  persons  of  the  real  world,  and  making  a  continual  abuse 
of  the  things  that  are  real.  Poor  children  !  Their  thoughts, 
their  judgments,  their,  affections,  their  habits,  all  rest  on  a 
false  foundation  :  they  are  betrayed  by  imagination,  but  only 
because  the  latter  has  been  used  as  the  magician  to  deceive 
and  destroy  them  by  parents,  friends,  teachers,  and  all  about 
them,  in  fatal  rivalry.^ 

1  On  the  mischief  of  bringing  up  a  child  in  an  unnatural  position,  it  will  b© 
well  to  read  Madame  Guizot's  sixth  letter. 


352  ON   THE   KULING  PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD.       * 

417.  This  species  of  immoral  errors  is  seen  on  a  far 
larger  scale  in  the  history  of  the  infancy  of  nations.  The 
latter  have  not  contented  themselves  with  creating  a  multi- 
tude of  phantoms :  they  have  made  them  real  beings,  of 
which  idolatry  is  a  proof.  And  idolatry  is  not  found  only 
among  the  ancients  or  among  savages  :  it  has  been  truly 
said  that  it  exists  among  Christian  and  civilized  peoples  ; 
for,  wherever  excessive  passions  exist,  they  demand  idols  of 
the  imagination,  in  which  they  may  believe,  before  which 
they  may  fall  down  and  worship  :  they  demand  that  it  shall 
enlarge  and  metamorphose  the  boundaries  of  the  real  world 
and  create  within  it  another,  more  pleasing  to  their  fancy. 
How  true  this  is,  must  be  felt  by  all  who  have  observed  with 
any  care  the  boundless  delight  of  mankind  in  self-delu- 
sion. It  is  evident  everywhere.  In  society,  men  want  to  be 
cheated  by  soft  words,  and  are  irritated  by  those  who  are 
too  sincere  and  honest  to  deceive  them.  In  literature,  as  in 
art,  there  are  still  some  who  lament  the  loss  of  mythology, 
or  try  to  invent  it  anew.  In  history,  we  refuse  to  accept 
bare  fact,  or  to  believe  it,  unless  recommended  by  some 
fable  which  it  enshrines.-^  It  is  the  same  with  events  and 
words  ;  we  are  impelled  by  some  occult  force  to  give  sub- 
sistence to  that  beloved  imagination  which  has  truly  none. 
This  it  was  that  made  Plato  dread  the  poets  and  admit  in 
the  education  of  youth  only  lyrical  poetry,  which  sang  hymns 
to  the  gods  or  the  praises  of  virtue  and  the  virtuous.^ 

1  "  'Listen  to  a  true  story  which  happened  to  me,'  said  an  English  colonel  to 
his  Indian  hosts,  and  related  to  them  one  of  his  extraordinary  adventures.  They 
would  listen,  and  then  exclaim,  '  That's  not  true,'  in  a  tone  of  suspicion  and  con- 
tempt. 'Listen,  then,  to  a  fable,'  he  would  say  again  ;  and  they  would  cry  out, 
'  Tell  us,  tell  us,'  and  hang  breathless  on  his  words.  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  readers  of  civilized  society  differ  much  or  little  from  these  poor  dwellers  in 
the  wilds.  I  cannot  tell  why  truth  does  not  appear  true  enough  to  men  to  awaken 
a  true  affection."  N.  Tommas^o,  Bella  Bellezza  EducatricCy  Pensieri,  P.  XL 
XVI.,  c.  iii. 

2  See  the  Phxdo,  De  Leg.  II.,  and  Rep.  X. 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    AND    SELFISHNESS.  353 

ARTICLE   IV. 

fHK    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    OF   THE    CHILD    AT    THAT    AGE,  CONSIDERED    IN  RE- 
LATION  TO    MORALITY.  —  MORAL    EVILS.  —  SELFISHNESS. 

418.  At  this  point  an  important  observation  has  to  be 
made.  The  errors  which  arise  from  the  development  of 
fancy,  and  which  I  have  shown  in  the  last  chapter  to  be 
dangerous  to  the  child's  morality,  change  their  nature,  ac- 
cording as  they  are  considered  at  the  age  when  man  has 
not  yet  the  consciousness  of  himself,  the  concept  of  the  I, 
or  at  the  later  age,  subsequent  to  his  having  attained  that 
consciousness  and  concept. 

So  long  as  man  is  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  that  mono- 
syllable /,  he  is  only  a  substantial  feeling,  acting  by  the 
laws  of  spontaneity :  these  laws  are  inherent  in  his  nature, 
whether  considered  in  its  perfection  or  in  its  natural  corrup- 
tion. But,  from  the  moment  that  he  has  perceived  himself, 
an  immense  change  takes  place  in  relation  to  his  free  moral 
action. 

It  is  evident  that  a  subject  which  has  not  the  intellectual 
perception  of  itself  cannot  make  of  self  the  object  and  end 
of  voluntary  action.  For  the  will  is  that  which  acts  to- 
wards an  object  known  to  the  intellect,  and,  if  the  man 
has  not  yet  become  an  object  to  his  intellect,  he  cannot  be 
the  object  of  his  will.  Previous  to  the  time,  then,  at  which 
man  acquires  the  consciousness  of  himself,  knowledge  of  the 
/,  he  acts  subjectively,  indeed,  but  cannot  make  himself  the 
fixed  aim  of  his  actions.  So  soon,  however,  as  he  has  attained 
that  consciousness  of  self,  he  can  make  that  self  the  term 
and  scope  of  his  will  and  action.  What  an  immense  revo- 
lution is  thus  introduced  into  the  moral  world  of  the  child  ! 

419.  Selfishness'^  can  begin  only  when  man  understands 

1  Merely  subjective  action,  that  is,  the  action  of  feeling  not  making  an  object  of 
the  subject  feeling,  is  in  itself  neither  interested  nor  disinterested,  as  I  have  shown 
in  the  Comparative  History  of  Moral  Systems.  (Sforia  comparativa  de'Sistemi 
morali)^  C.  IV.  art.  iv.  to  which  I  refer  the  reader. 


354  ON   THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE   OF   METHOD. 

himself.    With  the  notion  of  the  /  begins,  then,  the  possibil- 
ity of  true  selfishness. 

It  is  true  that,  even  before  he  attains  self -consciousness, 
a  man  may  fall  into  moral  error ;  but  the  nature  of  the 
error  is  different.  It  can  consist  only  in  the  violence  of 
spontaneous  subjective  impulse,  leading  to  action  against 
objective  claims.  This  is,  undoubtedly,  a  fault ;  but  it  is 
rather  indirectly  and  negatively  wrong,  than  a  direct  and 
positive  transgression.  Let  me  explain :  If  two  objects 
are  before  me,  and  I  prefer  the  less  to  the  more  worthy,  I 
may  do  it  in  two  ways  :  first,  I  may  be  urged  by  a  blind 
instinct  to  such  vehement  and  rapid  action,  that  I  do  wrong 
to  the  worthier  object,  not  because  I  contemn  it  or  prefer 
the  less  worthy  one,  but  solely  because  I  am  carried  away 
by  the  force  of  the  blind  impulse,  which  does  not  stop  to 
consider  the  objects,  and  prevents  my  making  any  com- 
parison or  judgment  of  their  value  ;  second,  I  may  delib- 
erately and  freely  choose  the  pleasure  or  advantage  I  find  in 
the  less  worthy,  in  preference  to  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
more  worthy.  In  the  first  case  I  do  wrong,  indeed,  but  only 
indirectly  and  negatively,  rather  through  the  weakness  and 
corruption  of  my  nature  than  out  of  malice.  In  the  second, 
I  do  wrong  directly,  positively,  with  malicious  intent.  Now, 
this  second  way  of  sinning  almost  always  presupposes  the 
consciousness  of  self ;  it  is  a  form  of  sin  which  generally, 
at  any  rate,  arises  from  selfishness.  For,  if  I  deliberately 
choose  between  a  pleasure  or  benefit  to  the  subject,  self, 
and  my  duty,  I  must  have  made  this  subjective  pleasure  or 
benefit,  which  I  prefer,  an  object  to  my  own  understanding, 
so  that  the  latter  has  that  actual  knowledge  of  it  which 
prompts  the  will,  not  the  mere  feeling  which  begets  the 
instinct ;  and,  if  this  pleasure  or  benefit  concerns  myself,  if 
it  consist  in  some  aggrandizement  of  myself,  if,  in  short, 
it  belongs  to  my  substantial  feeling  (that  which  I  myself 


DEGREES    OF    SELFISHNESS.  355 

am) ,  I  must  be  conscious  of  myself  to  conceive  it,  and  this 
consciousness  must,  in  any  case,  awaken  and  take  form  in 
the  very  act  of  choice. 

Thus  it  happens  that,  by  his  consciousness  of  self,  man 
introduces  into  his  perversity  the  most  fatal  of  its  elements, 
selfishness,  by  which  he  makes  himself  the  end  of  his  actions 
and  sacrifices  all  else  to  himself. 

ARTICLE   V. 

CONTINUATION.— TWO  DEGREES  OF  SELFISHNESS. 

420.  The  selfishness  which  consists  in  making  self  the 
end  of  action,  and  which  first  appears  at  the  age  we  are  con- 
sidering, has  two  degrees  :  (1)  that  which  is  born  of  forget- 
fulness  of  others  and  thought  of  self  only :  (2)  that  which 
fully  considers  the  interests  of  others,  but  only  to  sacrifice 
them  to  self.  It  is  evident  that  this  second  degree  is  far 
worse  than  the  first. 

The  first  is  mostly  the  offspring  of  ignorance,  and  belongs 
to  uneducated  people.  "A  person  whose  mind  has  never 
gone  beyond  its  own  immediate  concerns,  is  naturally  least 
disposed  to  consider  others.  We  know  how  diflScult  it  is 
to  make  the  lower  classes  understand  anything  which  inter- 
feres, in  the  slightest  degree,  with  their  own  interest.  The 
more  ignorant  they  are,  the  greater  is  the  diflficulty  ;  and  it 
lies  not  only  in  their  knowing  nothing  beyond,  but  mainly  in 
this,  that  they  can  think  of  nothing  beyond  that  which  inter- 
ests them  personally.  By  learning  to  carry  our  thoughts  be- 
yond ourselves,  to  exercise  our  judgment  on  objects  uncon- 
nected with  ourselves,  we  acquire  the  power,  and  form  the 
habit,  of  considering  objects  in  themselves,  and  not  only  in 
relation  to  us.  Knowledge  generally  preserves  us  from  the 
narrowness  which  gives  importance  to  insignificant  things. 
We  acquire  soundness  of  judgment  from  the  habit  of  com- 
parison, and,  the  wider  the  circle  of  our  thoughts,  the  less 


356  ON   THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

are  we  prepared  to  make  much  of  that  which  concerns  our- 
selves." ^  This  is  the  kind  of  selfishness  which,  in  the 
world,  interferes  with,  and  bars,  the  noblest  schemes,  and 
when  these  have  to  be  discussed  in  an  assembly,  it  often 
happens  that  one  or  another  individual  gets  up  and  opposes 
a  great  public  good,  on  the  ground  of  some  infinitesimal 
private  interest ;  the  most  frivolous  reason,  a  mere  incon- 
venience which  vanishes  into  nothingness',  when  compared 
with  the  benefit  of  the  proposed  measure,  being  suflficient 
to  throw  it  out. 

It  might  be  supposed  that,  in  small  countries,  where  pas- 
sions^ are  not  so  much  excited,  and  the  number  of  voters 
is  smaller,  the  schemes  for  public  good  would  have  a  bet- 
ter chance ;  but  this  is  not  the  case  :  what  is  wanting  in 
violence  or  passion  is  made  up  by  the  selfishness  of  igno- 
rance. 

Children  show  this  kind  of  selfishness  whenever  they  find 
themselves  with  people  who  indulge  them  in  everything. 
The  habit  of  getting  whatever  they  ask  for  prevents  their 
ever  considering  the  trouble  they  give  to  others,  and  they 
think  only  of  their  own  pleasure.  The  character  of  Sophy, 
in  Mad.  Guizot's  Letters,  is  an  admirably  portrayed  example 
of  this. 

The  second  degree  of  selfishness  does  not  belong  to  this 
age ;  it  is  the  guilt  of  maturer  minds. 

ARTICLE   VI. 

CONTINUATION.  —  JUDGMENT  BY  TWO  MEASURES.  —  CHILDISH  ARTIFICES. 

421.  The  evil  progeny  of  selfishness  is  legion.  It  causes 
man  to  apply  a  different  measure  to  himself  and  to  others, 
to  what  concerns  himself  and  what  concerns  them.     This  is 

1  Mad.  Guizot,  Lett.  XXXTII. 

»  The  context  here  shows  that  the  negative  has  been  omitted  in  the  text  by  a 
clerical  error.  —  M.  G.  G. 


MORAL   APATHY.  357 

the  fatal  evil  from  which  all  moral  evils  take  their  form,  and 
no  watchfulness,  no  pains,  can  be  too  great  to  preserve  a 
child  from  it.  If  education  could  succeed  in  maintaining 
his  rectitude  of  mind  and  impartiality  of  judgment  in  every- 
thing down  to  the  most  trifling,  it  would  make  of  him,  in  a 
short  time,  a  perfect  man. 

For  the  same  reason,  the  cunning  of  children,  their  small 
but  frequent  untruths,  assume  a  graver  character,  when  they 
proceed  from  already  formed  selfishness.  We  make  a  great 
mistake  in  judging  children  solely  by  external  facts,  as  they 
appear  in  their  immediateness.  The  same  fact,  the  same 
artifice,  the  same  falsehood,  may  in  two  different  children 
have  an  infinitely  different  moral  significance.  Insight,  the 
discernment  of  inward  motive,  these  are  the  prime  gifts  of 
the  true  educator. 

ARTICLE   VII. 

MORAL  APATHY  AND  RESTIVENESS. 

422.  In  the  fifth  order  are  also  manifested  the  moral 
apathy  and  restiveness  which  constitute  a  most  dangerous 
evil  in  children. 

We  have  seen  that  the  desire  to  influence  the  will  of  others 
awakens  in  the  child,  in  the  preceding,  ^.  e.,  the  fourth  order, 
of  cognitions,  a  desire  which  springs  from  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  child's  own  will,  which  he  does  not  want  to  give 
up,  and  that  of  others,  which  yet  he  feels  he  ought  to  re- 
spect and  put  above  his  own.^  But  even  the  necessity  of 
influencing  the  will  of  others,  in  order  to  bring  it  into  accord 
with  his  own,  is  felt  as  a  burden,  a  tie  upon  him,  which  he 
will  bear  only  in  proportion  to  his  benevolent  affections  and 
moral  feelings. 

1  At  this  age,  the  child  does  not  know  his  own  will  objectively;  hence,  he  cannot 
judge  of  its  moral  worth  or  give  it,  in  virtue  of  such  judgment,  precedence  over 
another's.  The  latter,  therefore,  iilone  has  a  right  to  the  moral  respect  of  a  child 
of  that  age,  his  own  will  not  having  yet  been  morally  valued. 


358  ON    THE   KULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

Now,  there  are  times  when  affection  has  no  power  over  the 
child's  heart,  and  his  moral  feeling  is  dull  and  inert,  through 
his  absorption  in  something  else.  At  such  times,  his  state 
is  deplorable.  The  will  of  others  is  an  annoyance  to  him, 
every  rule  an  odious  bondage.  Some  monstrous  caprice 
takes  hold  of  him ;  he  persists  in  it,  and  delights  in  the 
display  of  his  whole  physical  activity ;  he  feels  himself  the 
bigger  for  rebelling  against  the  law  and  using,  uncontrolled, 
his  natural  liberty.  Those  who  have  had  much  to  do  with 
children,  must  be  well  acquainted  with  this  dangerous  moral 
disease  in  them. 

The  obstinacy  of  a  child  who,  when  learning  to  read, 
would  always  say  h-a-u^  bu,  and  refused  to  repeat  b-a-u, 
bau,  is  thus  explained  by  Mad.  Guizot,  Lett.  IX.  : 

"Imitation,  which  is  the  effect  of  sympathy,  leading  men  to 
repeat  one  another  externally,  as  well  as  to  assimilate  themselves 
to  each  other  internally,  is  the  original  source  of  grammatical 
usage,  as  it  is  also  the  prime  factor  in  teaching.  But  the  child 
gets  tired  of  repeating  sounds  to  which  he  attaches  no  meaning, 
and  the  instinct  of  imitation  alone  is  not  enough  to  sustain  the 
more  active  exercise  of  will  and  effort  of  attention  you  are  begin 
ning  to  require  from  him.  He  will  then  try  the  exercise  of  will  on 
his  own  account,  and  you  may  expect  a  fit  of  obstinacy,  all  the 
more  invincible  that  it  is  utterly  without  a  ground  in  his  own 
reason,  and  without  a  point  of  connection  with  yours.  You  want 
him  to  say  bau ;  he  chooses  to  say  hu ;  the  one  seems  to  him  as 
right  as  the  other;  but,  as  it  is  he  who  has  to  pronounce  it,  he  feels 
himself  the  master  and  will  not  let  himself  be  coerced.  All  at- 
tempts to  force  him  will  be  in  vain ;  he  can  say  to  you,  as  did  the 
singer  to  the  King  of  Prussia,  who  put  her  in  prison  because  she 
would  not  sing :  '  You  have  a  thousand  means  of  making  me  cry, 
but  not  one  of  making  me  sing.'  He  will  find  it  easier  to  cry  and 
scream  than  to  pronounce  the  syllable  you  require,  because  he  has 
a  reason  for  crying  over  what  vexes  him,  but  none  for  doing  what 
he  does  not  like." 


SELFISHNESS    AND    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  359 

We  quote  the  following  additional  facts,  which  may  be 
verified  by  daily  experience  ; 

"  A  little  girl,  so  gentle  and  docile  that  she  seemed  to  find  her 
whole  happiness  in  obedience,  would  every  now  and  then  delight 
in  open  rebellion.  At  eighteen  months'  old,  she  already  showed 
this  alternate  desire  to  obey,  and  to  break  through,  the  rule  im- 
posed upon  her.  One  da3' .  being  alone  with  her  mother,  who  was 
kept  in  bed  by  illness,  she  burst  into  open  rebellion  for  no  reason 
whatever.  She  threw  upon  the  floor,  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
dresses,  bonnets,  chairs,  everything  she  could  lay  her  hands  upon, 
and  danced  and  sang  round  the  heap  in  wild  delight,  utterly  re- 
gardless of  her  mother's  serious  anger.  She  well  knew  she  was 
doing  wrong;  her  flushed  cheeks  betrayed  her  pangs  of  conscience, 
but  her  pleasure  consisted  in  suppressing  them.'/^ 

Now,  although  this  joy  in  wild,  absolute  liberty,  this 
desire  to  set  everything  at  naught,  does  not  appear  all  at 
once,  till  after  the  age  when  the  desire  to  exercise  influence 
in  others  has  arisen,  yet  it  may  manifest  itself  earlier. 
It  presupposes  moral  apathy  and  restiveness,  cooling  benev- 
olent feeling  toward  others,  while  dulling  the  understanding 
to  the  admiration  and  reverence  due  to  the  will  of  an  in- 
telligent being.  What  part  the  angel  of  darkness  may  have 
in  these  often  fortuitous  and  momentary  phenomena,  is  a 
secret  hidden  from  human  investigation  ;  they  are,  assuredly 
difficult  to  explain  by  the  ordinary  laws  governing  human 
nature. 

When  selfishness  already  exists  in  the  human  heart,  the 
moral  disease  of  which  we  speak  assumes  a  more  serious  and 
malignant  character. 

ARTICLE   VIII. 

MORAL   ADVANTAGES    OF   CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

423.  The  discovery  of  self  by  the  intellect,  in  other 
words,  the  attainment  of  self-consciousness,  while  it  may, 

1  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  vii. 


360  ON    THE   RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

as  we  have  seen,  prove  a  rock  on  which  moral  goodness  will 
be  wrecked,  may  also,  on  the  other  hand,  become  the  means 
of  opening  the  way  to  a  larger  and  happier  life. 

And,  in  fact,  the  sense  of  our  own  moral  dignity  is  not 
possible  until  we  have  arrived  at  the  consciousness  of  our- 
selves. This  consciousness  is  necessary  to  enable  man  to 
judge  himself,  to  impute  actions  to  himself,  to  understand  the 
imputations  of  others,  praise,  blame,  reward,  punishment. 
Who  but  must  see  how  incalculably  great  is  this  step  ;  how 
largely  the  means  of  moral  action  are  acquired  by  it ;  what 
a  new  form  morality  must  assume,  when  the  man  can 
reflect  on  his  own  action,  attribute  it  to  himself,  and  feel 
that,  if  it  is  good,  it  ennobles  him,  if  bad,  it  degrades  and 
corrupts  him! 

ARTICLE   IX. 

CONTINUATION. 

424.  Among  the  moral  advantages  derived  by  man  from 
self -consciousness,  are  the  memory  of  things  past  and  calcu- 
lation of  things  to  come.  The  consciousness  of  self  carries 
with  it  consciousness  of  our  own  identity  at  different  times ; 
the  notions  of  difference  of  time  and  of  identity  of  self  are 
relative  to  each  other,  and,  hence,  grow  up  pari  passu. 

We  have  already  observed,  how  ''  the  want  of  a  notion  of 
time  impedes  the  child's  moral  progress.  The  blank  in  the 
past  excludes  pain  :  that  in  the  future  excludes  fear ;  and, 
although  the  idea  of  the  consequences  of  actions  would  be 
a  useful  auxiliary  to  his  conscience,  yet  the  child  gives  it 
no  weight  in  his  decisions,  because  he  cannot  see  distinctly 
how  facts  influence  one  another.  His  extreme  mobility  sub- 
jects him  to  impressions  from  every  wind  that  blows  ;  his 
recollections,  on  which  he  does  not  dwell,  fade  away ;  and, 
even  if  he  retained  the  memory  of  events,  his  motives  in 
the  past  would  always  be  forgotten  by  him.  Too  variable 
to  believe  himself  the  same,  he  does  not  consider  himself 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  36 1 

responsible  for  the  child  of  yesterday,  who  is  not  the  one  of 
to-day.  He  lacks  that  sense  of  the  succession  of  thoughts 
which  gives  us  the  idea  of  the  /,  and  that  of  timCj  both  very 
dependent  on  each  other.  An  7,  the  immovable  spectator 
of  another  /  incessantly  modified,  and  registering  these 
modifications,  this  is  what  constitutes  our  identity,^  and, 
through  it,  the  morality  of  our  conduct  in  life.  But  in  the 
child  nothing  is  yet  fixed."  ^ 

The  gradations  by  which  the  child  comes  to  know  him- 
self, his  own  unity,  his  own  identity,  are  well  worthy  of 
observation.  There  is  a  time  when  he  can  recognize  that  of 
others,  while  yet  unaware  of  his  own,  for  the  reason  already 
given,  that  his  attention  is  first  drawn  to  outward  things, 
and  only  later  on  turns  back  upon  itself.  At  that  time  he 
judges  others  differently  from  himself,  and  his  judgment 
would  seem  to  be  unjust,  and  to  work  with  two  measures, 
though  it  is  not  really  so.  In  this  case,  his  different  judg- 
ments of  others  and  of  himself  does  not  arise  from  unfair 
partiality,  but  simply  from  his  knowing  others  in  a  different 
way  from  himself ;    he  perceives  them  to  be  the  same  at 

1  Properly  speaking,  our  identity  does  not  consist  in  one  /,  the  spectator  of 
another  //  for,  if  it  were  so,  there  would  be  two  /'s^nd  identity  would  be  wanting. 
It  is,  however,  true  that,  when  we  reflect  on  ourselves,  we  are  subject  to  such  an 
illusion  and  difficulty  in  perceiving  ourselves,  that  we  seem  at  times  two  or  more 
beings,  and  as  if  two  or  more  /'s  existed  in  us.  Still,  the  truth  remains,  that  our 
identity  consists  properly  in  this,  that  the  /  recognizes  itself  as  always  the  same 
through  all  the  variations  which  it  undergoes.  Thus,  the  /  is  at  once  an  immutable 
and  a  variable  subject,  and  hence  its  apparent  duality.  Closer  observation,  how- 
ever, shows  us  that  there  is  no  contradiction  in  an  identical  principle,  the  immu-  . 
table  subject  of  variations  ;  for  the  variations  are  actually  included  in  the  principle, 
so  that  the  new  appearance  is  not  really  a  new  thing,  but  only  a  new  form,  a  new 
mode  of  that  which  existed  before,  and  is  the  same  principle  developed,  as  the 
consequences  of  a  principle  are  contained  in  it,  and  are  the  principle  itself  in 
larger  action.  All  this  belongs  to  the  nature  of  a  finite  being,  which  is  identical 
in  potency  and  action,  as  a  telescope  is  identical  with  its  tubes  more  or  less  drawn 
out.  It  is  the  potency  itself  which  thus  alternately  suffers  diminution  or  exten- 
sion ;  both  are  there  at  once,  independently  of  time.  But  this  will  be  better  treated 
of  in  the  Ontology,  should  God  permit  us  to  produce  it. 

2  Mad.   Necker  de  Saussure,  L.  III.,  c.  vi. 


362  ON    THE    RULING   PRINCIPLE    OF   METHOD. 

different  times,  while  he  has  not  yet  perceived  this  of  him- 
self, and,  therefore,  he  judges  himself  as  a  different  person 
at  one  time  from  what  he  was  at  another.  Let  me  again 
quote  the  observations  of  another:  "  Louisa,  like  all  other 
children,  is  convinced  that  the  whole  thing  is  over  when  she 
has  made  amends  for  her  fault,  or  has  been  forgiven  for  it. 
It  does  not  occur  to  her  that  it  can  be  brought  up  again 
as  a  subject  of  reproach,  or  be  used  as  the  ground  of  an 
opinion  on  the  whole  of  her  conduct  and  character.  A  child, 
entirely  absorbed  in  the  present,  connects  his  fault  neither 
with  the  past  nor  the  future.  If  I  tax  Louisa  with  hav- 
ing already  lost  several  pairs  of  gloves,  she  will  answer, 
'  Mamma,  I  have  only  lost  one  to-day ; '  and,  if  I  reprove 
her  for  a  fault  constantly  committed,  she  will  say,  'But  I 
am  not  doing  it  now.'  Children  never  connect  the  idea  of 
a  fault  with  that  of  a  defect  or  habit,  and  the  words,  '  I 
won't  do  it  again,'  are  easier  to  them  than  the  thought  that 
they  will  begin  again  to-morrow  doing  the  same  they  have 
done  to-day.  And  thus,  unless  obliged,  they  will  never  ap- 
ply to  themselves  a  general  idea  of  vice  or  virtue.  A  child 
does  not  think  of  himself  as  good  or  bad ;  no  general  view 
of  his  own  character  enters  into  his  mind.  And  yet  such 
a  view  is  not  foreign  to  him  ;  for  only  through  its  means 
is  it  so  easy  for  him  to  form  an  idea  of  the  character  of 
others.  If  he  hears  a  person  spoken  of,  whether  real  or 
fictitious,  his  first  question  will  be,  '  Was  he  a  good  or  a 
bad  man?'  If  you  tell  him  the  story  of  the  death  of  Clitus, 
he  will  decide  that  Alexander  was  a  very  bad  man,  and  re- 
fuse to  listen  to  anything  to  the  contrary ;  and  if  he  has 
been  moved  to  compassion  by  the  story  of  Hagar  in  the 
desert,  he  will  altogether  refuse  to  admit  that  Hagar  could 
have  behaved  ill  to  Sarah,  and  will  hold  it  certain  that  Hagar 
was  good  and  Sarah  bad."^ 

1  Mad.  Guizot,  Lett.  XX. 


NATIONAL   PREJUDICE.  363 

One  fact,  therefore,  suffices  for  the  child  to  judge  of 
others,  whether  they  are  bad  or  good ;  but  he  forms  no 
fixed  judgment  on  himself,  and  judges  his  action  only  at  the 
moment  of  committing  it. 

425.  These  facts  mark  out  the  period,  a  somewhat  long 
one  in  childhood,  during  which  the  child  has  come  to  recog- 
nize the  identity  of  others  at  various  times,  and  can  form  a 
single,  definite  judgment  about  them  as  always  the  same  sub- 
jects, while  yet  he  has  no  notion  of  himself  as  the  same  at 
different  times,  and  judges  only  his  immediate  action ;  with 
this  result,  that  his  judgments  vary  with  the  varying  quality 
of  the  actions,  and  involve  no  general  or  final  sentence  for, 
or  against,  himself. 

I  have  said  that  this  period  is  somewhat  prolonged  in 
infant  life  ;  and  this  holds  good  for  the  inf anc}^  of  nations 
and  for  the  common  people,  who,  for  the  most  part,  remain 
children  always.  Why  does  a  nation  judge  so  severely  the 
defects  of  another  nation,  but  because  it  considers  the  latter 
as  an  individual,  and,  from  particular  actions,  pronounces 
condemnation  on  the  whole  body?  Whence  comes  popular 
passion,  whether  against  those  who  are  the  objects  of  its 
hate,  and  in  whom  no  good  thing  is  admitted  to  exist,  or  in 
favor  of  those  who  are  the  objects  of  its  love,  in  whom  it 
can  see  no  defects? 


END. 


Why  should  Teachers  ^:i:!^^:£:Z 

1        Ronniioo  "^  "^^^  ^^'^  stand  high  in  any   profession  who   is  not  familiar 
I .      DVLUU^C  i^nf,  jfg  history  and  literature. 

0      Rprnil^f^  '^  saves  time  which  might  be  wasted  In  trying  experiments  that 
£..    UCUUUoC  /j^yg  already  been  tried  and  found  useless. 

Compayr^'S  History  of  Pedagogy.    "  The  best  and  most  comprehensive 

history  of  Education  in  English."  —  Dr.  G.  S-  Hall $^-7S 

Oompayr^'s  Lectures  on  Teaching.    "  The  best  book  in  existence  on 

the  theory  and  practice  of  Education."  —  Supt.  MacAllister,  Philadelphia.    .         1.75 

Gill's  System  of  Education.     "  It  treats  ably  of  the  Lancaster  and  Bell 

movement  in  Education  —  a  very  important  phase."  —  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris.      .        1.25 

RadestOCk'S  Habit  in  Education.  "  It  will  prove  a  rare  '  find '  to  teach- 
ers who  are  seeking  to  ground  themselves  in  the  philosophy  of  their  art."  — 
E.  H.  Russell,  Worcester  Normal.    .  , 0.75 

Rousseau's  Enaile.     "  Perhaps  the  most  influential  book  ever  written  on  the 

subject  of  Education."  —  R.  H.  Quick 0.90 

Pestalozzi's  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  "  If  we  except '  Emile  *  only,  no 
more  important  educational  book  has  appeared,  for  a  century  and  a  half,  than 
*  Leonard  and  Gertrude.' " — The  Nation. 0.90 

Richter's  Levana ;  or  the  Doctrine  of  Education.    "  A  spirited 

and  scholarly  book."  —  Prof.  W.  H.  Payne 1.40 

Rosmini's  Method  in   Education.    "  The  most  important  pedagogical 

work  ever  written."  —  Thomas  Davidson 1.50 

Malleson's  Early  Training  of  Children.  "  The  best  book  for  mothers 

I  ever  read."  —  Elizabeth  P.  Peabodv. 0,75 

Hall's   Bibliography  of  Pedagogical   Literature.    Covers  every 

department  of  Education 1.50 

Peabody's  Home,  Kindergarten  and  Primary  School  Educa- 
tion. "The  best  book  outside  of  the  Bible  I  ever  read."  —  A  Leading 
Teacher i.oo 

Ne^WSholme'S  School  Hygiene.     Already  in  use  in  the  leading  training 

colleges  in  England 0.75 

DeGarmo's  Essentials  of  Method.    "  It  has  as  much  sound  thought  to 

the  square  inch  as  anything  I  know  of  in  pedagogics." — Supt.  Balliet, 
Springfield,  Mass.  . 0.65 

Hall's  Methods  of  Teaching  History.  "  Its  excellence  and  helpful- 
ness ought  to  secure  it  many  readers." —  The  Nation 1.50 

Seidel'S  Industrial  Education.  "  It  answers  triumphantly  all  objections 
to  the  introduction  of  manual  training  to  the  public  schools."  —  Charles  H. 
Ham,  Chicago.     ..." 0.90 

Badlam's  Suggestive  Lessons  on  Language  and  Reading. 

"The  book  is  all  that  it  claims  to  be  and  more.     It  abounds  in  material  that 

will  be  of  service  to  the  progressive  teacher." — Supt.  Dutton,  New  Haven.         1.50 

Redway's  Teachers'  Manual  of  Geography.    "  Its  hints  to  teachers 

are  invaluable,  while  its  chapters  on  *  Modern  Facts  and  Ancient  Fancies  '  will 
be  a  revelation   to  many." — Alex.    E.    Frye,  Author  of   "  TJie  Child  in 

Nature.^"* 0.65 

Nichols'  Topics  in  Geography.  "  Contains  excellent  hints  and  sug- 
gestions of  incalculable  aid  to  school  teachers,"  —  Oakland  {CaL )  Tribune.      .        •.65 


D.  C.  HEATH  &  CO,,  Publishers, 

BOSTON,    NEW   YORK   AND   CHICAGO. 


^onoGtapbs  on  lEbucation, 


MANY  contributions  to  the  theory  or  the  practice  of  teaching  are 
yearly  lost  to  the  profession,  because  they  are  embodied  in  articles 
which  are  too  long,  or  too  profound,  or  too  limited  as  to  number  of  inter- 
ested readers,  for  popular  magazine  articles,  and  yet  not  sufficient  in  vol- 
ume for  books.  We  propose  to  publish  from  time  to  time,  under  the  above 
title,  just  such  essays,  prepared  by  specialists,  choice  of  matter,  practical  ii> 
treatment,  and  of  unquestionable  value  to  teachers.  Our  plan  is  to  furnish 
the  monographs  in  paper  covers,  and  at  low  prices.  We  shall  continue  the 
series  as  long  as  teachers  buy  freely  enough  to  allow  the  publishers  to  recover 
merely  the  money  invested.    Of  these  series  the  following  are  now  ready :  — 

Modern  Petrography, 

By  George  Huntington  Williams,  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

The  Study  of  Latin  in  the  P7'eparatory  Course. 

By  Edward  P.  Morris,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Latin,  Williams  College. 

Mathematical  Teaching  and  its  Modern  Methods, 

By  Truman  Henry  Safford,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Astronomy  in  Williams  College. 

How  to  Teach  Reading  and  What  to  Read  in  the  Schools. 

By  G.  Stanley  Hall,  President  of  Clark  University,  Worcester,  Mass. 

Science   Teaching  in  the  Schools. 

By  William  North  Rice,  Professor  of  Geology  in  Wesleyan  University,  Conn. 

English  in  the  Prepai^atory  Schools. 

By  Ernest  W.  Huffcut,  Instructor  in  Rhetoric  in  Cornell  University. 

English  in  the  Schools, 

By  F.  C.  Woodward,  Professor  of  English  in  the  University  of  South  Carolina, 

The  Study  of  Rhetoric  i^i  the  College  Course. 

By  J.  F.  Genung,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  in  Amherst  College. 
PRICK,    25  CKI?«TS    KACH. 


D.  C.   HEATH  &  CO.,  Publishers, 

Boston,  New  York,  and  Chicago. 


The  Laboratory  Method 

In  its  Highest  and  Best  Exemplification  will  he  found  in  the 
following  books : 

Sheldon's  General  History.  —  This  book  gives  a  collection  of  historic  material 
which  may  be  dealt  with  first-hand,  as  the  pupil  deals  with  the  actual  substance  in 
Chemistry,  and  with  the  living  plant  in  Botany,  thus  stimulating  his  historic  sense 
and  judgment.     In  wide  and  increasing  use.    (^i.6o.) 

Sheldon's  Greek  and  Roman  History.  —  Contains  the  first  250  pages  of  the 
General  History  bound  in  this  form  for  college  preparatory,     (^i.oo.) 

Hodgkin's  Nineteenth  Century  Authors.  —  A  laboratory  method  in  Literature. 
The  plan  is  to  give  concerning  each  author  the  date  of  his  birth  and  death,  a  list  of 
biographical  writings  concerning  him,  a  list  of  significant  facts  in  his  life,  the  names 
of  contemporary  writers,  a  list  of  choice  selections  from  his  writings,  a  list  of  his 
best  books,  and  a  list  of  selected  books  regarding  him.     (^i.oo.) 

Shepard's  Elements  of  Chemistry.  —  This  book  is  a  practical  embodiment  of 
the  modern  spirit  of  investigation.  It  places  the  student  in  the  position  of  an  in- 
vestigator, and  calls  into  play  mental  faculties  that  are  too  often  wholly  neglected. 
It  leads  him  to  experiment^  to  observe^  to  think^  to  originate.  In  successful  use  in 
more  than  250  schools  and  colleges.     (^1.12.)     (Briefer  Course,  6octs.) 

Colton's  Practical  Zoology.  —  This  book  tells  the  student  where  to  find  his 
specimens ;  how  to  observe  their  habits  and  habitats  ;  their  metaphorphoses  and 
modes  of  development ;  how  to  collect  and  preserve ;  and,  finally,  how  to  dissect 
them.  In  short,  it  is  a  guide  to  the  study  of  animals  rather  than  a  mere  descriptive 
zoology.     (80  cts.) 

Chute's  Practical  Physics.  —  This  book  consists  of  a  series  of  carefully  selected 
exercises,  both  qualitative  and  quantitative  in  character,  with  directions  regarding 
the  preparation  of  apparatus,  and  the  manner  of  conducting  the  experiments,  together 
with  suggestions  about  observing,  note-taking  and  making  inferences  from  data. 
(^1.12.) 

The  above  books  are  only  a  few  from  the  many  that  we  publish  for  High  Schools 
and  Academies.  We  have  a  full  series  in  French  and  German,  and  excellent  works 
in  Geology,  Latin,  Natural  History,  English,  etc.  Teachers  looking  for  the  BEST 
books  should  write  for  our  complete  catalogue,  stating  in  what  subjects  they  are 
specially  interested. 

D.  C.  HEATH  &  CO.,  Publishers, 

5  Somerset  St.,  Boston,     186  Wabash  Ave.,  Chicago,      18  Astor  Place,  New  York. 


NEW  AND  HELPFUL  BOOKS  FOR  TEACHERS. 


Topics    in    Geography. 

By  W.  F.  NICHOLS,  Principal  of  Hamilton  School,  Holyoke,  Mass. 

Prepared  especially  for  the  use  of  the  teachers  and  pupils ;  they  contain  a  comprehensive 
outline  of  all  geographical  facts  usually  taught  in  our  best  primary  and  grammar  schools, 
together  with  many  excellent  suggestions  for  increasing  the  interest  of  pupils  by  object  lessons 
and  language  work  in  geography.  It  will  be  found  a  practical  and  useful  guide,  containing  a 
vast  deal  of  information  concisely  stated.  A  list  of  books  for  reference,  including  many 
interesting  and  reliable  tales  of  travel  is  added. 

Price  to  Teachers,  65  cents.  When  introduced  into  classes,  the  price  paid  for  sample 
copy  will  be  credited  on  bill  sent  with  introduction  order. 

A    Manual    of    Geography,       Modern    Facts  and 
Ancient  Fancies  in   Geography. 

A  book  for  Teachers.     By  JACQUES  W.  RED  WAY. 

Renders  the  latest  discoveries  of  modern  science,  in  reference  to  Geography,  available  for 
the  use  of  teachers.  A  chapter  on  Out-of-door  lessons  shows  what  may  be  observed  in  the 
pupil's  own  neighborhood  about  earth-sculpture,  and  how  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  erosion 
may  be  studied  in  the  rills  that  form  during  a  rain-storm.  A  chapter  on  clay  and  sand-model- 
ling and  another  on  map-drawing  are  full  of  interesting  information  elsewhere  difficult  to 
obtain.  Not  only  supplements  the  ordinary  manual  in  matters  of  geographical  science,  but  is 
full  of  useful  hints  to  teachers,  and  of  bright,  interesting  information  for  the  general  reader. 

Cloth,  175  pages.     Price,  65  cents. 

The  Earth  in  Space. 

A  Manual  of  Astronomical  Geography.  By  EDWARD  P.  JACKSON,  Instructor  in 
Scienge  at  the  Boston  Latin  School.     77  pages.     Cloth.     Introduction  price,  30  cents. 

Lately  adopted  for  use  in  the  Grammar  Schools  in  Boston. 

Table  of  Contents.  I.  How  we  know  that  the  Earth  is  Spherical;  II.  How  we 
know  that  the  Earth  is  flattened  at  the  Poles;  III.  Latitude  and  Longitude;  IV.  Zones; 
V.  How  we  know  Dimensions  and  Distances;  VI.  Gradual  Changes  in  Light  and  Heat 
during  the  Day  and  Year ;  VII.  How  we  know  that  the  Earth  rotates, —  Apparent  Daily 
Motion  of  the  Heavens;  VIII.  How  we  know  that  the  Earth  revolves;  IX.  The  Inclina- 
tion of  the  A^is, —  The  Sun's  Declinations, —  The  Change  of  Seasons, —  The  Variation  iu  the 
Length  of  Day  and  Night,    Appendix. 


Rick's  Natural  History  Object  Lessons. 

Supplies  information  on  plants  and  their  products,  on  animals  and  their  uses,  and  gives 
specimen  lessons.     Fully  illustrated,  $1.50. 

Luddingtonsm  Illustrated  Number   Cards. 

3x5  inches,  in  colors,  to  teach  by  pictures  combinations  from  one  to  ten.     Nine  sets,  each 
with  a  card  of  directions  and  suggestive  problems.    In  neat  box,  1^.65 

Wilsons  The  State. 

Elements  of  Historical  and  Practical  Politics.     A  text-book  for  advanced  classes  in  hig^ 
schools  and  colleges  on  the  organization  and  functions  of  government,  ^2.00  * 

Wilsons  U.  S.    Government. 

For  grammar  and  high  schools,  $.50 


D,  C.  HEATH  &  CO.,  Publishers,  Boston,  New  York  and  CMcago. 


New  Books  on  Education. 

I  do  not  think  that  you  have  ever  printed  a  book  on  education  that  is  not  worthy  to  go  on 
any  "Teacher's  Reading  List,"  and  the  best  list.  — Dr.  William  T.  Harris. 

Compayre  s  History  of  Pedagogy, 

Translated  by  Professor  W.  H.  Payne,  University  of  Michigan.     Price  by  mail,  $1.75. 
The  best  and  most  compi   hensive  history  of  education  in  English.  —  Dr.  G.  S.  Hall. 

GilVs  Systems  of  Education, 

An  account  of  the  systems  advocated  by  emuient  educationists.    Price  by  mail,  $1.10. 

I  can  say  truly  that  I  think  it  eminently  worthy  of  a  place  on  the  Chautauqua  Reading 
[Jst,  because  it  treats  ably  of  the  Lancaster  and  Bell  movement  in  Education,  —  a  very 
Important  phase.  —  Dr.  William  T.  Harris. 

Radestock's  Habit  in  Education, 

With  an  Introduction  by  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall.     Price  by  mail,  65  cents. 
It  will  prove  a  rare  "find"  to  teachers  who  are  seeking  to  ground  themselves  in  the 
philosophy  of  their  art.  —  E.  H.  Russell,  Prin.  of  Normal  School,  Worcester,  Mass. 

Rousseau  s  Emile, 

Price  by  mail,  85  cents.   , 

There  are  fifty  pages  of  Emile  that  should  be  bound  in  velvet  and  gold.  —  Voltaire.  ^ 

Perhaps  the  most  influential  book  ever  written  on  the  subject  of  education.  —  R.  H.  QuiCK. 

Pestalozzis  Leonard  and  Gertrude, 

With  an  Introduction  by  D,r.  G.  Stanley  Hall.     Price  by  mail,  85  cents. 
If  we  except  Rousseau's  *'  Emile  "  only,  no  more  important  educational  book  has  appeared 
for  a  century  and  a  half  than  Pestalozzi's  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude." —  The  Nation. 

Richters  Lev  ana  ;    The  Doctrine  of  Education. 

A  book  that  will  tend  to  build  up  that  department  of  education  which  is  most  negkcted 
and  yet  needs  most  care  —  home  training.     Price  by  mail,  $1.35. 

A  spirited  and  scholarly  book.  —  Prof.  W.  H.  Payne,  University  of  Michigan. 

Rosmints  Method  i^i  Education. 

Price  by  mail,  $1.75. 

The  best  of  the  Italian  books  on  education.  —  Editor  London  yournal  of  Education. 

Hall's  Methods  of  Teaching  History, 

A  symposium  of  eminent  teachers  of  history.     Prise  by  mail,  $1.40. 

Its  excellence  and  helpfulness  ought  to  secure  it  many  readers.  —  TAe  Nation. 

Bibliography  of  Pedagogical  Literature, 

Carefully  selected  and  annotated  by  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall.    Price  by  mail,  $1.75, 

Lectures  to  Kindergartners, 

By  Elizabeth  P.  Peabody.    Price  by  mail,  $1.10. 

Monographs  on  Educatiojt,     (25  cents  each.) 

D.  C.  HEATH  &   CO.,  Publishers, 

BOSTON,   NEW  YORK,  AND   CHICAGO. 


EDUCATION, 


The  Study  of  Rhetoric  in  the  College  Course. 

By  J.  F.  Genung,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  in  Amherst  College.     5  by  *]% 
inches.     Paper.     32  pages.     Price  by  mail,  25  cents. 


THIS  book  is  the  outcome  of  the  author's  close  and  continued  inquiry 
into  the  scope  and  limits  of  rhetorical  study  as  pursued  by  under- 
graduates, and  of  his  application  of  his  ideas  to  the  organization  of  a 
progressive  rhetorical  course.  The  first  part  defines  the  place  of  rhet- 
oric among  the  college  studies,  and  the  more  liberal  estimate  of  its  scope 
required  by  the  present  state  of  learning  and  literature.  This  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  discussion  of  what  may  and  should  be  done,  as  the  most 
practical  discipline  of  students,  toward  the  making  of  literature.  Finally, 
a  systematized  and  progressive  course  in  rhetoric  is  sketched,  being 
mainly  the  course  already  tried  and  approved  by  the  author's  own 
classes. 


Hiram  Corson,  Prof,  of  English 
Literature,  Cornell  Univ. :  I  think  the 
general  views  and  the  special  methods 
presented  by  Professor  Genung,  in  his 
article  on  The  Study  of  Rhetoric  in  the 
College  Course,  are  admirable.  Perhaps 
there  never  was  a  time,  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  education,  when  it  was  more  im- 
portant than  at  present,  that  students 
should  be  encouraged  and  trained  to 
take  what  might  be  called  active  attitudes 
toward  things  and  subjects.  There  is 
an  almost  irresistible  temp^tion  in  these 
days  to  become  a  mere  absorber,  acqui- 
sition being  made,  in  our  schools,  the 
all  in  all.  The  consequence  is,  that 
students  who  are  most  energetic  in  ac- 
quiring knowledge  are  averse  to  that 
independent,  self-sustained  effort  which 
productiveness  demands. 

W.  C.  Wilkinson,  Author  of  vari- 
ous Chautauqua  text-books  :  I  have  just 
been  reading,  in  your  admirable  series 
of  Monographs  on  Education,  Prof.  Ge- 
nung's  Study  of  Rhetoric,  and  I  cannot 
refrain  from  expressing  to  you  the  sense 
I  have  of  the  value  of  the  service  you 
are  rendering  to  the  cause  of  education 


in  making  such  essays  accessible  to 
teachers  and  to  the  general  public.  This 
particular  monograph  almost  deserves  to 
be  described  prophetically  as  an"  epoch- 
making"  production  —  in  its  own  sphere. 
I  have  never  anywhere  else  seen  so  much 
good  sense  expressed  on  the  subject  of 
which  it  treats,  and  the  style  is  example 
and  demonstration.  {June  11,  1887.) 

Mary  Sheldon  Barnes,  Oswego, 
N.  Y.  :  It  is  adinirable,  and  cannot  fail  to 
be  of  real  use  to  many  teachers.  I  can- 
not see  how  his  method  and  course  could 
be  improved. 

The  Morning"  Star,  Boston :  As 
the  study  of  rhetoric  is  coming  more 
and  more  to  be  recognized  as  of  prac- 
tical value,  —  a  study  that  should  stand 
second  to  no  other  in  an  educational ; 
course, — it  is  well  that  Professor  Genung 
has  put  within  the  reach  of  teachers 
this  little  book.  Certainly  all  will  agree 
that  the  facilities  of  studying  and  using 
our  mother  tongue  ought  to  be  as  good, 
and  as  enthusiastically  applied,  as  those 
for  studying  the  Greek  and  Latin  lan- 
guages.   The  book  is  a  good  one. 


What  riusic  System 


shall  we  introduce? 


Dr.  Wm.  T.  Harris,  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  in  his  recent 
report  to  Congress  on  the  condition  of  the  public  schools  of  the  District 
of  Columbia,  says :  — 

"  It  seems  that  vocal  music  is  almost  entirely  confined  to  the 
learning  of  musical  notation.  Even  this  is  taught  to  pupils  in 
the  lowest  grade  while  the  pupil  is  taking  the  first  step  just  de- 
scribed of  learning  to  read  from  printed  words. 

*'  It  would  appear  that  musical  notation  ought  not  to  be  begun 

until  the  third  grade  at  the  very    earUest.     The  special   music 

teacher  ought  to  teach  a  large  number  of  choice  songs  by  rote, 

taking  care  to  secure  good  expression  from  the  pupils  and  to  cor- 

.  rect  the  errors  which  are  always  taking  root  in  class  singing. 

"  Another  very  important  reflection  forced  itself  on  the  attention 
of  the  Commissioner  and  his  assistants  in  this  investigation. 
Special  teachers  should  rarely  if  ever  be  employed  for  any  other 
purpose  than  to  reinforce  the  work  of  the  regular  teacher.  The 
music  teacher  should  instruct  in  new  songs,  correct  bad  tenden- 
cies, and  chiefly  by  his  lesson  show  the  regular  class  teacher  how 
to  conduct  the  singing." 


The  Whiting  Music  Series,  published  by  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co. 

of  Boston,  is  better  adapted  than  any  other  system  before  the 

pubHc  to  promote  the  work  called  for  by  Dr.  Harris.     The  ex- 

ceptionally  tuneful  and  enjoyable  quality  of  its  exercises  and  songs 

delights  the  children,  and  the  very  superior  grading  of  the  series 

makes  the  work  easy  for  the  teacher.     The  First  Reader  contains 

forty  choice  rote  songs,  and  will  by  its  method  prevent  the  defect 

mentioned  in  Dr.  Harris's  first  paragraph. 

(over.) 


What  System  of  Drawing 


shall  I  in- 
troduce ? 


Dr.  Wm.  T.  Harris  in  his  recent  report  to  Congress  on  the  condi- 
tion of  schools  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  says :  — 

"  In  drawing,  the  Commissioner's  assistant,  Dr.  L.  R.  Klemm, 
notes  the  absence  of  a  central  controlling  power.  He  calls  at- 
tention again  and  again  to  the  inaccuracy  of  the  work  observed 
by  him  both  in  the  colored  and  in  the  white  schools.  The 
Commissioner  is  disposed  to  explain  the  defects  in  drawing  by  the 
too  early  neglect  of  exercises  in  drawing  from  the  flat.  Drawing 
has  an  alphabet  which  must  be  learned  first  before  one  can  spell 
with  it.  Place  a  pupil  before  an  object  and  tell  him  to  draw  it 
and  he  will  not  know  what  lines  to  use  for  this  purpose  unless  he 
has  learned  by  drawing  from  good  drawings  what  lines  produce 
the  appearances  desired.  What  raw  pupil  would  know  how  to 
represent  a  cylinder  or  a  sphere  —  what  parts  to  shade  and  what 
parts  to  leave  entirely  blank  —  before  he  has  learned  this  lesson 
by  studying  and  reproducing  good  drawings  given  him  ? 

"After  the  alphabet  of  representing  form  is  learned  by  copying 
a  progressive  series  of  drawing  lessons,  the  pupil  should  certainly 
be  set  at  drawing  from  models." 

Thompson's  System  of  Industrial  and  Educational  Drawing, 
published  by  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.  of  Boston,  is  specially  com-r 
mended  by  Dr.  Harris,  because  its  plan  is  in  exact  conformity 
with  the  correct  principles  above  set  forth. 


The  entire  System  consists  of  the  following  Series  of  Drawing  Books  and  Manuals  :  — 

1.  Manual  Training  Series  ;  Two  Manuals. 

2.  Primary  Free  Hand  Series  ;  Four  Drawing  Books  and  Manual. 

3.  Advanced  Free  Hand  Series  ;  Four  Drawing  Books  and  Manual. 

4.  Model  and  Object  Series  ;  Three  Drawing  Books  and  Manual. 

5.  Aesthetic  Series  ;  Six  Books  and  Manual. 

6.  Mechanical  Series  ;  Six  Drawing  Books  and  Manual. 

7.  Institute  Series  ;  Two  Drawing  Books.  (over.) 


Methods  of  Teaching  and  Studying  History. 

Edited  by  (}.  Stanley  Hall,  Professor  of  Psychology  and  Pedagogy  in 
Johns  Hopkins  University.  l2mo.  400  pages.  Mailing  price,  ^1.50;  In- 
troduction price,  $1.20. 

» 

HP  HIS  book  gathers  together,  in  the  form  most  likely  to  be  of  direct 
practical  utility  to  teachers,  and  especially  students  and  readers 

of  history,  generally,  the  opinions  and  modes  of  instruction,  actual  or 

ideal,  of  eminent  and  representative  specialists  in  each  department. 

The  following  Table  of  Contents  will  give  a  good  idea  of  the  plan  and 

scope  of  this  valuable  book  :  — 


Introduction.     By  the  Editor. 

Methods  of  Teaching  American  History. 

By  Dr.  A.  B.  Hart,  Harvard  University. 

The  Practical  Method  in  7'igher  Histori- 
cal Instruction.  By  \  ^ofessor  Ephraim 
Emerton,  of  Harvard  University. 

On  Methods  of  Teaching  Political  Econ- 
omy. By  Dr.  Richard  T.  Ely,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University. 

Historical  Instruction  in  the  Course  of 
History  and  Political  Science  at  Cor- 
nell University.  By  President  Andrew 
D.  White,  Cornell  University. 

Advice  to  an  Inexperienced  Teacher  of 
History.  By  W.  C.  Collar,  A.M.,  Head 
Master  of  Roxbury  Latin  School. 

A  Plea  for  Archseological   Instruction. 

By  Joseph  Thacher  Clarke,  Director  of  the 
Assos  Expedition. 

The  Use  of  a  Public  Library  in  the  Study 
of  History.  By  William  E.  Foster,  Libra- 
rian of  the  Providence  Public  Library. 

Special  Methods  of  Historical  Study.    By 

Professor  Herbert  B,   Adams,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University. 

the  Philosophy  of  the  State  and  of  His- 


tory.     By    Professor   George    S.    Morris, 
Michigan  and  Johns  Hopkins  Universities. 

The  Courses  of  Study  in  History,  Roman 
Law,  and  Political  Economy  at  Har- 
vard University.  By  Dr.  Henry  E.  Scott, 
Harvard  University. 

The  Teaching  of  History.  By  Professor 
J.  il.  Seeley,  Cambridge  University,  Eng- 
land. 

On  Methods  of   Teaching  History.     By 

Professor  C.  K.  Adams,  Michigan  Univer- 
sity. 

On  Methods  of  Historical  Study  and  Kc- 
search   in  Columbia    University.     B3I 

Professor  John  W.  Burgess,  Columbia  Uni 
versity. 

Physical  Geography  and  History. 

Why  do  Children  Dislilte  History?    B:; 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 

Gradation  and  the  Topical  Method  of 
Historical  Study;  Historical  Litera- 
ture and  Authorities;  Books  for  Col- 
lateral Beading.  By  Professor  W.  F. 
Allen,  Wisconsin  University. 

Bibliography    of   Church   History.     By 

Rev.  John  Alonzo  Fisher,  Johns  Hopkins 
University. 


D.  C.  HEATH   &   CO.,  Publishers, 

Boston,  New  York,  and  Chicago. 


IB  3486 1 


